My first reaction to the indictment of Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick for running a dog fighting operation was disgust, as a person and as a dog lover.
My second reaction was unease, of a professional sort. My soon to be published book, Hiring Secrets of the NFL, begins a chapter titled “Character Matters” by quoting Atlanta Falcons owner (and Home Depot founder) Arthur Blank: “One the terms I’ve learned to be sensitive to is risk and reward. Now when I hear it in a character context, I don’t want those players on the team”.
What lessons should Arthur Blank learn from this disaster? What could the Falcons have done differently? The answer, surprisingly, may be nothing.
It is simplistic to suggest that the Falcons need to mend their approach to assessing player character. Quoting Arthur Blank on the importance of character seemed safe enough when I was writing the book late in 2006. Home Depot’s corporate culture was a significant contributor to its success, and the Falcon’s General Manager, Rich McKay, built a Super Bowl champion in Tampa Bay by valuing a players character as an enabler for his realizing the potential of his talent. The Falcons have avoided drafted players with legal or character issues, like the Cincinnati Bengals, with nine players currently in the legal system.
As for Michael Vick himself, the Falcons do not seem to have been enablers for his bad behavior, which sprung up in mid-career like a tree rotting from the inside. Vick made the Pro Bowl twice his first four years in the NFL, and was rewarded by the Falcons at the end of the 2004 season with a record 10-year contract worth $130 million. He was considered the NFL’s most exciting and marketable player, though questions remained about whether a running quarterback could win a Superbowl, or even stay healthy.
Vick’s legal troubles began in March 2005, when he was sued by a woman who claimed she had contracted a sexually transmitted disease from him. In January 2007 he was briefly accused of attempting to carry a water bottle with a hidden compartment for marijuana onto an airplane, though Vick was cleared of any wrongdoing based on tests of the bottle. These two incidents, together with Vick making an obscene gesture to Atlanta fans following a November 2006 loss, marked Vick as a problem child in the making.
The April 2007 police raids and July federal indictment of elaborate dog fighting operations on Vick’s Virginia estate moved Vick from a problem child to a likely moral monster. But did Arthur Blank know of this? Almost certainly not, given his concern for his and the Falcon’s public image in Atlanta.
Should Blank have made it his business to know that Vick was running an illegal interstate dog fighting ring? How would that conversation have gone? What checklist of felonies and infamies would Blank have had to review with his employees to satisfy himself that they were not criminals?
It remains true that organizations that tolerate superstars who are personally productive but organizationally disruptive rarely attain world class performance. But as with any risk, the best you can do is to minimize risk exposure, not eliminate it.
