I think every sports fan has seen the movie “The Longest Yard” with Burt Reynolds (if you are a youngin, maybe you have seen the updated version with Adam Saddler).
The short version of the plot is this: a former quarterback is made an offer to throw a game against the cons vs. guards for a get out of jail free card after running afoul with the law.
When Michael Vick went to prison, one of the jokes that a lot of people made was when would he have his Longest Yard moment while locked up?
It was taken as a joke, but according to Peter King of SI.com, it actually happened. Not as dramatic as the movie, but interesting nevertheless.
While imprisoned at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., had a “Longest Yard” experience, quarterbacking one team of cons to a 42-14 win over another? The inmates kept badgering him to play, but he went more than a year without touching a football — until September 2008, with eight months left on his sentence.
The inmates split into two seven-on-seven teams for a game of flag football. Vick offered to play quarterback for both teams, but that was turned down; a slew of guys wanted the chance to say they were on a team that beat Michael Vick. Alas, the Vick side won in a rout; he said he thought he threw maybe six or seven incompletions. “All my guys wanted to do was go deep,” he said. I asked him if he was sacked at all. “Once,” he said. To which Tony Dungy, listening in, said: “Sign that guy up.”
They should have shown it on ESPN 17. If we can have Lebron’s “Decision”, why couldn’t we have had prison flag football starring Michael Vick?
Ratings would have been through the roof.