Dave’s Football Blog

Michael Vick makes me glad I became a soccer fan.

Actually, no, it’s not so much Michael Vick as it is the wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Vick. Cable news channels have this nasty tendency to latch on to a sensational story, no matter how inane, and run it into the ground, because they have 24 hours of programming to fill, and dammit, they’re going to fill every last minute of it with something that will grab people’s attention.

A superstar quarterback getting caught running a dogfighting ring, complete with illegal gambling and cruelty to animals? That sure sounds like an attention grabber, doesn’t it? That grabs even more attention than a talented cornerback with a posse that shoots up strip clubs, or a defensive lineman that gets drunk, gets behind the wheel and gets someone killed.

Perhaps it was okay when sensational stories like that involved actors or politicians, because then it would be confined to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other channels that I don’t bother to watch. Now, however, the 24-hour coverage mentality has infiltrated ESPN. They beat the Pacman story to death, and now that Vick has admitted guilt and will go to jail, they’ll beat that story to death, too. Everyone will chime in with an opinion — former players, columnists, legal experts, etc. — and they won’t stop chiming in, because it’s a big damn story, and everything else about the NFL has to be put on hold until the day after he goes to prison.

Then in three months, he’ll be interviewed in prison. Then in 12 months, when he finally gets out and ends up at some halfway house with two armed robbers and a crack whore, they’ll drag it out again, and all those pundits will return and talk about whether he can actually return to the NFL — all this attention for guy who hasn’t proven that he’s anything more than Kordell Stewart with a better agent.

You can’t talk about the NFL right now without talking about Michael Vick. And I want to talk about something else.

I want to talk about Manchester United’s inability to score a goal, despite being clearly quicker, more agile and more talented than any team they’ve played so far. I want to talk about Man City’s incredible start, or Reading’s incredible defense, or Jens Lehmann’s incredible ineptitude in goal.

I want to talk about last Saturday’s crowd at Giants Stadium, which hasn’t been that full for a soccer game since Giorgio Chinaglia was boinking his teammates’ girlfriends while high on coke at Studio 54. I want to talk about how Beckham’s arrival may help Jozy Altidore become a superstar. I want to talk about why there are no quality strikers in American club soccer, and why the U.S. Open Cup should mean as much here as the FA Cup does in England, even though the importance of winning the FA Cup appears to be in rapid decline.

I want to talk about things happening on the field. That’s why I became a sports fan in the first place. These games are supposed to be pleasant diversions from our drab everyday lives. They’re supposed to be play. We envy those who play these games for a living because we wish we could play, too, rather than being stuck in some cubicle all day, trying to make enough to pay the rent and keep our families fed and clothed. People who spend their lives at play seem to have the right idea.

According to ESPN, however, the only play in the NFL right now is a morality play, and even when the games start, the talk won’t stop, because that’s how our national media works. Michael David Smith says he’ll miss Michael Vick, but you can’t miss someone who’s never going to go away. All those pundits fear soccer because they fear it might somehow replace our gridiron game? They need not worry. Michael Vick took care of that already.

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