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Michael Vick, 2010 MVP?Evaluating the chances of the quarterback making an NFL comeback.

By Peter KeatingPosted Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007, at 6:14 PM ET

Michael VickIn just eight months, about the amount of time it takes the BALCO grand jury to order lunch, federal authorities busted Michael Vick for helping run a dogfighting ring, extracted a plea from him, and delivered him to U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson. On Monday, the judge sentenced Vick to 23 months in prison. Now, sports fans can move on to the topics we really care about. Not the plight of the dogs, naturally, nor the question of whether Vick is a psychopath or a hunting aficionado gone somewhat overboard. Rather, when will Vick play again in the NFL? And will he be any good?

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Vick fans are already noting that since he began serving his sentence before Thanksgiving, and good behavior can shave 15 percent off a federal sentence, he could be a free man by the time training camps open in the summer of 2009. There are a couple of big problems with that scenario. Vick still faces state felony charges in Virginia, where he could get up to 10 more years in prison and there is no possibility for parole. (He will stand trial in Surry Circuit Court next April.) Moreover, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell may be in no mood to let Vick play again. Under the league's personal conduct policy, just consorting with gamblers can earn a player a lifetime ban from the NFL. Remember that Vick has admitted not only that he helped kill six to eight pit bulls, but that he provided money for betting on dogfights.

Related in Slate

Chris Wilson asked if Michael Vick can play football in prison. Michelle Tsai explains what Vick was doing with a rape stand. Harlan J. Protass goes over why Vick should have hoped for a 366-day sentence. In 2003, Robert Weintraub examined the Falcons' prospects after they lost Vick to a broken fibula during the preseason.

Let's assume, though, that Vick walks sooner rather than later and that the commissioner doesn't stand in his way. Despite all the current talk about how Vick has wrecked the Falcons, and what a PR nightmare it would be to have him around again, and how nobody would want to entrust their team to a dog killer, it's a sure bet that some NFL franchise will give him a chance. Vick's combination of arm strength and running ability—the talents that media types like to roll into the loathsomely all-purpose word athleticism—are a package the world hadn't seen before he arrived. Athletes at the extreme right end of the talent distribution curve never run out of chances.

But Michael Vick will be at least 29 when he leaves federal prison in Warsaw, Va. And the NFL is too fast, too precise, and too violent for a past-prime body and an out-of-practice mind to pick up where they left off after an absence of two (or more) seasons.

Vick's 23-month sentence puts him in an unusual category. Most players who commit crimes skip serious jail time, unless their acts are horrific enough that they're sent away for so long that they have no hope of returning. There aren't too many prison terms for athletes falling in between those served by, say, Jamal Lewis (four offseason months for trying to set up a cocaine deal) and Rae Carruth (18 to 24 years for conspiracy to murder his pregnant girlfriend).

A few athletes, in football and other sports, have missed enough playing time for it to be disruptive to their lives but not enough to wreck their careers immediately. (I'm not considering guys like Jim Palmer, Bjorn Borg, and Mark Spitz, whose comebacks were more stunt than career revival.) Almost none made successful comebacks. The great exceptions: Muhammad Ali, who lost three peak years to legal battles after refusing induction into the Army in 1967 and then came back as good as ever, and Michael Jordan, who dabbled in baseball for a year and a half before returning to dominate the NBA in 1995. But if you're not one of the two greatest athletes of the last century, history says that you'll likely lose a step if you sit out a year. Miss any more time, and you'll lose your job.

Ricky Williams led the NFL in rushing in 2002. A positive test for marijuana and a burning desire to study something called Ayurveda led him to retire for the first time in 2004. He came back in 2005 and ran for 743 yards. After another flunked drug test sent him to the CFL in 2006, Williams returned to the Dolphins in the middle of this season. He rushed six times against Pittsburgh last month, then hobbled away injured.

Cornerback Dale Carter, who made four Pro Bowls in the '90s, was suspended for the entire 2000 season after missing drug tests. In 2002, he managed to land a seven-year, $28 million contract with the Saints but was suspended again soon afterward and played in only 29 more games. Paul Hornung, a great short-yardage running back for the old Packers, averaged 4.5 yards per carry from 1957 to 1962. Then the NFL suspended him (along with Alex Karras of the Lions) for a year for betting on games and associating with gamblers. In the three seasons after Hornung came back, he rushed for just 3.4 yards a carry.