The reasoning behind this type of policy is relatively straight forward, if a team can’t sell out its home games, keeping fans from seeing the game on TV encourages more to attend future games. It’s the type of thinking that has dominated sports thinking for the majority of the 20th century, but unfortunately, it comes at a cost. Even if we’re going to assume that that fan wanted to see the game, the whole fact that the stadiums arent filling because of the economic downturn is still there, and shelling out the greenbacks to see the game may not be a feasible option. So what happens then? That fan cannot watch the game and eventually their interest declines. Regardless of whether or not the fan even considered going to the game, its pretty tough for them to maintain their level of fandom without the ability to watch half of the team’s 16 games.

It actually was the New York Yankees that changed this type of philosophy in baseball. Every team blacked out their home games on TV back then, but the Yankees were revolutionary in deciding to televise every baseball game, regardless of whether it was home or not. What ensued was a total domination of the New York fanbase, and the Yankees were able to take a much higher percentage of New Yorkers as fans, leaving the Mets in the dust, a disparity that still exists to some degree today.

Blackouts are usually bad for teams as well, because they fail to receive the television income from the game, a significant amount of money. Clearly, the solution is simple here: The NFL should know what’s best for the sport and what’s best for its fans and scratch its policy. It’s not going to happen, but one can hope.

To start off, let me tell you what I would do if I was a team that is considering going after Vick for next season: find another option. I just don’t see how it can be in a team’s interest to get a guy like Vick. Let’s face the facts, Vick was always an average quarterback at best who was glorified for his playing style. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the man play, it’s incredibly exciting, but he lacked the actual quarterbacking skills to make him effective. So to me, Vick is a high-risk low-reward play. I can’t possibly see him being any better after coming out of prison, and it would definitely be possible that he has gotten worse and will need some adjustment time, so it’s probably not a good move. And sure, he might motivate the fan base somewhat, but he’s also going to cause major controversy, any big-time NFL fans that also happen to be serious animal rights activists (can’t imagine there a ton of these people, but still) would be quite put off.

Even if a team wants to have Vick play for them, the real obstacle lies in the hands of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell/Harvey Dent. You know Goodell is going to want to punish Vick beyond his time spent in the penitentiary, so on or somewhere soon after July 20, when Vick’s sentence is up, we may find out that all of this is moot because he is being suspended further.

Now beyond all that, let’s take a look at who might be interested. The leading candidate right now is the Miami Dolphins after former NFL coach Dennis Green said that Bill Parcells wants to go after him, and being the wily fox that Parcells is, Green thinks he can convince Goodell to let Vick play. With all of the wildcat-type things that the Dolphins did last season, Vick actually seems like a pretty good fit there, so if he’s going to play in the NFL. Another option might be the Vikings, assuming that the Favre stuff falls through. Since they’re looking for a temporary quarterback, if Vick can’t find a big offer, taking a one-year contract and then “proving” he’s still got it would be smart. Other teams could try this too, particularly ones that are going to be “training” young quarterbacks, like the Jets, though to be honest I don’t really see that happening at all. Destination: Miami Dolphins.