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"We all make mistakes," said Michael Vick. "Dogfighting is a terrible thing and I reject it ... I found Jesus and turned my life over to God. I think that's the right thing to do as of right now."
Gee, that didn't take long.
I didn't think the curtain on the "finding Jesus" act would rise until after Vick went to jail, but alas, it came on the same day he made his plea deal official.
It took Paris Hilton a few hours in the slammer before she met Jesus, and Vick does it even before lockup. Who knew?
He must have hired Hilton rep Elliot Mintz as his spokesman over the weekend.
Let's face it. Vick loves dogfighting. He loves the rush it gives him to see dogs that he helped to train maul and kill other dogs. Even his own father and grandfather say as much — although their witness to Vick's character is about as solid as Vick's future in football.
When ConVick's dogs didn't perform well, he killed them in a "collective" effort that amounted to electrocution and drowning, and when electricity or water were too much to ask for, he and his cohorts "collectively" body-slammed man's-best-friend to death.
"I made a mistake in using poor judgment and making bad decisions," he said.
Poor judgment? Keyshawn Johnson used poor judgment by writing a book in which he espoused on his greatness on the field. That's poor judgment, especially after you start dropping passes.
Bad decisions? Terrell Owens stuffing a Sharpie in his pants and autographing a football during a game is a bad decision.
What Vick did is called breaking the law. Committing a crime. Intentionally killing a living creature.
For that, prosecutors recommend 12 to 18 months.
That's half the time Andrew Burnett got for grabbing a little bichon frise named Leo off its owner's lap and throwing the dog into oncoming traffic after a road rage incident seven years ago.
At least Burnett had the "road rage" defense. Vick's involvement in killing dogs had nothing to do with emotions. That decision was made in order to cut losses. Why pay to feed and house dogs that don't perform well?
He said we all make mistakes, but ask him to be honest, and he might tell you the only mistake he made was that he associated with the wrong types of people, and in the end, that's what got him caught.
Don't forget, if Vick's cousin hadn't been involved with drugs, the dogfighting operation would never have been discovered while investigating Vick's Virginia property.
And if you look back to Vick's initial statements, about associating with the wrong types of people, he was clearly aiming to let those people take the fall for him.
It's kind of like Lindsay Lohan eyeballing the owner of the SUV she allegedly hijacked a few weeks ago while saying to cops, "I wasn't driving, officer. Go on guys, tell him I wasn't driving."
"I'm going to have a lot of downtime," Vick said before walking off the podium. You can say that again, Michael.
The other day I read a story in one of the papers of record about two athletes who were raking in endorsement deals to the tune of over $1 million a year.
They are volleyball players who happen to be a couple. And while I applaud them for their athletic prowess and believe that they deserve to rake in whatever the market will bear for their services as spokespeople, I began to wonder what made them so attractive to sponsors.
Was it their success on the beach? Well, yes. But it goes deeper than that. Put simply, they attract an audience. A very desirable audience. In the business they call it the "demo," that much coveted 18-to-34 age group. This group presumably makes all of their long-term buying decisions during this time of their lives, when brand loyalty is akin to friendship.
But why do advertisers constantly choose athletes for these deals? Or pop stars? How many athletes (Michael Vick — duh) end up burning their endorsement sponsors with bad behavior?
How about Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears?
What will happen when everybody who is endorsing a product crashes and burns in some way, shape or form?
And, is there anybody out there bulletproof? We know athletes, actors and singers — all attractive to sponsors — are not.
How about bloggers? They have broad reach, but half of these people we never really "meet," or even know what they look like, so there's too much mystery surrounding them.
Maybe we should begin seeing commercials from Cirque du Soleil performers. First, the troupe is visually stunning. Second, it is family-friendly. Third, there is no one person who stands out in any performance, hence zero ego. And fourth, they make up their own language, so even if they did do anything stupid, we wouldn't know it.
But most of all, with 50 or more performers per commercial, nobody is getting stupid rich, which will probably alleviate most of the stupid things that stupid rich people do, more and more often these days.
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