Vick's U turn? UFL might be best and only option for now

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Here's a prediction: Michael Vick plays this season, but he doesn't play in the NFL. He plays in the UFL.

That's the fledgling league that hired Jim Fassel, Jim Haslett, Ted Cottrell and Dennis Green as head coaches and is expected to open in October.

Michael Vick might need the lower UFL profile for a while. (Getty Images)

It's also a league starved for attention, and in Michael Vick, it would have it. Not only would he attract thousands of fans, either to support him or protest his return, but he would deliver a buzz startups crave. Moreover, he would bring in a media army, and if you don't believe it, you didn't see reporters camped outside federal prison in Fort Leavenworth on Wednesday.

Anyway, the UFL could do for Michael Vick what the NFL might not, and that's give him somewhere to play this season.

I don't know that Vick is suspended again, but I know it's a possibility. I also know that I didn't hear of one team at this week's NFL owners meetings that expressed interest in the guy if and when commissioner Roger Goodell reinstates him.

San Francisco seemed a possibility once, with 49ers coach Mike Singletary not ruling out the move, but that was before the club took smart pills and measured the public-relations backlash -- whiplash is more like it. Vick is now off the 49ers' radar.

"All I know is that he doesn't fit us," said Jed York, the team's president. "Like any player that has on-the-field issues or off-the-field issues, no matter who it is, you have to look at the total package. And I think we like the collection at our team right now, and we're not looking at anything that would disrupt what we have going on."

Neither are the Oakland Raiders. They haven't said anything publicly, but people close to the club tell me they wouldn't take a chance on Vick.

The Falcons still own Vick's contractual rights, but that won't last long. They either trade him or release him, and I can't imagine the club doing anything but cutting Vick loose. That doesn't mean there weren't inquires. People within the Falcons tell me several clubs called but weren't all that serious -- acting more to satisfy their curiosity than anything else.

I think you can connect the dots: For the moment, there is no market for Michael Vick, which is why the UFL seems such the logical -- and maybe, the only -- place for him this season.

"My guess," said Atlanta owner Arthur Blank, "is that if the commissioner lifts the suspension in the National Football League and clubs have an interest in him, he would prefer to play in the National Football League as opposed to the UFL. I don't know that, but I would suppose that."

I would, too, provided clubs have an interest in him. I haven't found any that do, and that's partly because they're waiting on Goodell and mostly because Vick is a public-relations bomb waiting to explode. San Francisco experienced it, and so will the next team that leaves its front door yawning, inviting Vick to step in.

"I'd think you'd want to be very careful about it," said Houston owner Bob McNair. "The last thing you want to do is annoy your fan base, because without our fans we have nothing. You don't want to put together something that will turn them off. That could be a disastrous situation."

Which is why the UFL makes perfect sense. First, there are some league executives who think Vick will be suspended at least part of the upcoming season. So there's a window there. Second, the UFL has no fan base. So there's the door. Put the two together, and you have the perfect home. Nervous NFL teams that might have an interest once a suspension is lifted could measure fan reaction while he plays in another professional league.

"It makes sense to me," said one executive. "I talked to our general manager this morning, and he brought it up, saying he could see it happening."

So can I, though there are people out there who aren't willing to rule out the NFL for Vick this season. Their point: Someone will take a flyer on the guy, convinced he can push them over the top or at least to a winning record. Vick seems perfectly suited to the Wildcat offense, and with more teams using it, Vick's value as a player increases.

He can run. He can throw. He can disrupt defenses. In short, he could be a weapon as a role player, not necessarily a quarterback.

In his last season with Atlanta, he was inaccurate as a passer but unstoppable as a running back. He completed 52.6 percent of his passes but ran for a career-best 1,039 yards. I don't know what he lost in the 2½ years that he has been away from the game, but it's hard to believe he can be the same overnight.

"I've never seen anyone sit out two or three years and come back," said an NFL executive. "I know offensive linemen who have come back, but they get hurt. And that's the risk on the field: injuries. Michael Vick is an extraordinary athlete, so maybe he's different. All I know is that if you put him in the Wildcat he'd be perfect. He's unstoppable in the red zone."

So let him do it in the UFL. Vick can sharpen his athletic skills there, rehabilitate his public image, then graduate to the NFL when he believes he's ready -- or, more accurately, when it is ready. Vick needs time to straighten himself out on the field and off, and the NFL needs time to get used to having him back. So send him to the UFL and let the games begin.

"It goes beyond paying the price," said Blank, "because clearly he's done that. Now [it's a question of] whether or not he's a different person than he was back in December of 2006 and whether he's surrounding himself in a environment that is going to allow himself to be productive person and player and team member in the league.

"It goes beyond words. It goes to show he's going to live; how he's going to live personally and how he's going to live in a community with others. Clearly, based on what happened over a number of years a lot of issues were related to Michael and acts he has to take responsibility for -- and I think he has. But also what contributed a great deal to that were the people Michael spent a great deal of time with and the influence they had on him.

"I think his ability to separate those people who can be helpful and productive in his life now vs. the ones who have another agenda -- their own agenda, not his -- that's going to be very critical for Michael now. There's an expression that you are what you eat. To some extent, you are whom you hang with too, and that does have an effect on lives."

I see Michael Vick hanging out with the UFL.