Ryan draft day was Vick’s lowest point
Michael Vick has been to prison and declared bankruptcy, but he said one of the worst days of his life came when the Falcons — his former NFL team — drafted Matt Ryan.
As Ryan and the Falcons prepare to take on the Patriots on Sunday in Super Bowl LI in Houston, Vick admitted April 26, 2008, was a low point for him.
Serving his sentence at Leavenworth Penitentiary for his role in bankrolling a dog-fighting ring, Vick called his mother for her birthday and found out his grandmother had suffered a stroke. Minutes later, he learned from a fellow inmate the Falcons had just drafted Ryan out of Boston College with the No. 3 overall pick.
Though Vick was about to miss a second straight NFL season, he still thought of himself as Atlanta’s quarterback. In fact, one of his goals when he entered prison was to lead the Falcons to the Super Bowl once he got out.
“There was one thing that I just had a permanent blind spot for: being the starting quarterback of the Falcons,” Vick wrote in a piece titled “Atlanta” and published Wednesday on The Players’ Tribune. “It was something that I had taken so much pride in … something that I had come to identify myself with so strongly.’’ No more. “After that, I knew that everything had changed,” Vick wrote. “I knew there was no going back — not to start for Atlanta, not to play for Atlanta, not even to live in Atlanta. Matt Ryan. After that, I knew it was over.”
Vick, selected first overall by the Falcons in 2001, led the team to the NFC title game in 2004, which they lost to the Eagles. In 2007, investigators discovered “Bad Newz Kennels,” and Vick pleaded guilty after being indicted on federal felony charges.
“They could have everything,’’ Vick wrote. “But my job … my team … my city? Those three things, I was going to get back. It’s what I thought about on the day that I walked into prison, and it’s what I thought about pretty much every day after that.’’
After being cut by Atlanta following his release from prison, at the age of 29, Vick ended up resuming his career with the Eagles and got them to the playoffs in 2010. He became a backup and bounced to the Jets and Steelers. He didn’t play in 2016, and the 36year-old now says he is retired — with a retirement party booked for a Houston nightclub on Saturday.
He was invited by the Falcons to come back to Atlanta last month for the final regular-season game at the Georgia Dome and insisted he isn’t bitter toward the organization.
“It’s funny: A lot of people are surprised when they find out how passionately I’ve been rooting for the Falcons this season,” Vick said. “They assume that there is some sort of tension between us, some level of bitterness.”
Instead, he says he and Ryan T “have a great relationship” and he will be pulling for the Falcons on Sunday.
“People have to understand: I felt like it was my fault, like it was my responsibility, that the Falcons franchise had been set back,” Vick said. “And if Matt had been a bust … then my guilt over the harm I’d caused the city would have only grown worse.”