Even my buddy Mike Florio over at the Rumor Mill on www.ProFootballTalk.com has not covered this particular nuance within the facts of the United States of America vs. Michael Vick.  The National Football League is made up of it’s thirty-two member clubs, or as they are more commonly referred to as the thirty-two teams.
  Now the league itself maintains an in-house security office staffed by retired FBI, CIA types.   This office monitors and maintains safety throughout the various interests of the league and it’s member clubs.  In addition, each of the individual thirty-two teams maintains it’s own separate in-house security personnel often staffed by former detectives and local law enforcement types to benefit from their long-standing relationships with the local jurisdictions.

Now let’s take a moment to define what these 33 mini-police agencies must look after.  To recap how we got to thirty-three remember there is the NFL League-wide Security office, plus the security personnel that works for each of the 32 teams individually, giving us a total of 33 different groups of professional security personnel.  Now there are approximately 1,800 professional football players who are active within the National football league.  1,800 players each of whom are considered an individual property right of the league and a highly skilled and trained expert. 

You have 33 separate security offices whose job in part is to monitor and protect the player/property rights of the league.  What does this include you might wonder?  Perhaps security steps in when a player’s girlfriend has gone crazy and locked him out of his house; allowing the player to resolve the situation without a trip to the front page of the local papers.  Perhaps security may gather reports from their sources within the local police departments and report back to the front office the activities of the player/property rights.  Such and such, got pulled over speeding, but got let off with a warning.  There was strong evidence of Marijuana being consumed in the car.

The team and the league benefit in multiple ways from having this highly developed and organized security organization.  After all, it is a multi-billion dollar per year enterprise.

So now enters Michael Vick, perhaps the most popular and marketable athlete/property right in the entire NFL.  Michael Vick is accused of running a multi-state dog-fighting and gambling operation by the federal government of this Country.  Some have speculated that other NFL football players were also involved in the dog-fighting and gambling.  (If one thinks of the locker room pre-disposition for competition and more importantly for gambling it is not a very far river to cross.)  So, assuming that we accept the notion that other NFL players/property rights were also involved in the conspiracy that one of the 33 security agencies may have caught wind of the super-baller style dog fights that were going on in secluded parts of the country where it is not coincidence when 2 or more active millionaire player/property rights gather with their stout and rambunctious pets.

The point is that the NFL security personnel should have had ample notice and evidence of what the players/property rights were up to.  And if they did have notice and/or actual evidence what is the repercussion of standing by?  Does actual knowledge of a criminal conspiracy and not acting on such knowledge make you a co-conspirator?

What do you think?