WANTS GIROUX TO BE OUR VALENTINE
UPDATED:
Michael Vick arrived at Lehigh today and answered questions from the media. Here is a sampling of what he said:
* He said he should have listened to his mother and kept the party private, rather than allowing the public in.
* Vick says he found out about shooting "15-20 mins" after it happened "from a friend." Vick said he went to the authorities to explain what his role was.
* Vick said it "wasn't a pleasant conversation" when Vick told Andy Reid about the shooting.
* Vick says he wants to sit down with comissioner Roger Goodell when Goodell visits Eagles camp next week and "look him in the eye." He said he spoke with Goodell on the phone last week.
* He said he knows he's on his "last chance" and knows he shouldn't have put himself in that situation where something like the shooting could happen.
* “Two to three weeks ago I was curious if I was going to make it to training camp … I didn’t do anything wrong … The whole time I was confident that I was going to be here.”
* “Everything in my life is a work in progress. I never thought something like that would happen. If I knew I never would have showed up. There was a lot of thins I could have done to avoid a situation like that, but I didn’t.”
* "You never want anyone to get shot. You never want anyone to get harmed ... if certain people would have never showed up, it never would have happened."
EARLIER:
The NFL has completed its investigation into the shooting at Michael Vick's birthday party last month in Virginia Beach and he has been cleared to play, a league spokesman told the Daily News today.
In an email, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said, "there is no change in his playing status."
The league could have disciplined Vick under the personal conduct policy even though police have said Vick will not be charged. Vick's attorney has said he was gone from the scene before the shooting took place.
Vick reportedly met with comissioner Roger Goodell, with Goodell urging Vick to tighten his circle to family and close friends. The NFL has said it will not comment on what it deems private conversations between players and Goodell.
The announcement comes as Vick, rookies and selected veterans are scheduled to report to Lehigh today for the start of training camp.
Vick is expected to answer questions from reporters for the first time since the incident.
Quanis Phillips, one of Vick's codefendants in the dogfighting ring, was shot in the leg outside the party.
Virginia Beach police say they know the identity of the shooter but cannot file charges because witnesses are being uncooperative.
*
In other news, left guard Todd Herremans is among the selected veterans expected to report today.
Herremans, who has started more Eagles games than any member of the offense, missed much of the spring with pain in his foot. It was the same foot that required surgery that caused him to miss the first five games last season.
Herremans has seen a specialist and has said the foot is fine.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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