Michael Vick has accepted a plea deal on the dogfighting charges. He will serve a prison term of 10 to 12 months.

While I don’t support laws against dogfighting, I regard the “sport” as somewhere lower than despicable. In Vick’s operation, “according to the indictment, dogs not killed in the fighting pit often were shot, hanged, drowned or slammed to the ground. The document says Vick was consulted before one losing dog was electrocuted in the fighting that took place on his Virginia property.” It’s sickening.

As he deserves, Vick has lost millions of dollars of endorsements already. According to the article, “Reebok took the unprecedented step of stopping sales of his No. 7 jersey.” I hope that the NFL bans him from the game permanently, but that’s perhaps too optimistic. In any case, I doubt he’ll ever play again. Despite his enormous talents, he’d surely be a public relations disaster for any team that even considered hiring him. Heck, it might even be dangerous for him to play, as I’m sure that more than a few large defensive players are quite fond of their own dogs.

His career is surely over — as it ought to be. The only way that he could have done worse for himself was to allow the case to go to trial, for then all his brutality would have been displayed to the public in gory detail.

In short, Michael Vick has destroyed a very bright football career for the supposed pleasure of watching dogs rip each other to shreds. If that’s not irrational, then I’m not sure what is.