Michael Vick is a free man. Sort of.

The former star quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons was released from a federal prison yesterday after doing 19 months in prison on dogfighting charges. He then got in a car and headed for his home in Virginia, where he will remain on home monitoring.

The big question now is whether or not an NFL team will roll the dice and give Vick a job. He was released by his last employer, the Atlanta Falcons.

This country’s justice system is based on the idea that everyone deserves a second chance. That should not exclude Vick.

But playing quarterback in the NFL is not exactly a low-profile position. Very often the man who holds down that slot becomes the face of the franchise. Does anyone want a guy convicted of doing to dogs what Vick did as the face of their multi-million dollar enterprise?

As a newspaper editor, I can tell you a little something about animals.
No, not the people I work with.

Every day the newspaper is filled with sometimes horrific items involving people in the worst circumstances imaginable. Very often the public rolls their eyes, shrugs their shoulders, and moves on.

But put a story about an animal being abused in the paper and the phones light up like Three Mile Island.

I believe Michael Vick deserves another chance. But I wouldn’t want to be the guy who signs that check.

And I don’t envy Vick the first time he dons that uniform and then walks out in front of 80,000 fans and a national TV audience.

That is what I would call a Dog Day Afternoon.