Michael Vick WAS in talks with PETA (UPDATE)

UPDATE ALERT! PETA's Heather Carlson sent this email to me:

To clarify misleading stories regarding PETA and Michael Vick, PETA withdrew its offer to do a TV spot with Michael Vick last winter when a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on Vick's dogfighting activities revealed that he enjoyed placing family pets in the ring with fighting pit bulls and that he laughed as dogs ripped each other apart.

PETA believes that this revelation, along with other factors in the report, fit the established profile for anti-social personality disorder (APD), and we called on Vick to have a brain scan to help confirm this. People diagnosed with APD are commonly referred to as "psychopaths." They are usually male, prone to lying and manipulation, often take pleasure in cruelty, and cannot feel genuine remorse, which frequently leads to recidivism.

PETA had previously been in talks with Vick's management, public relations, and legal teams about shooting a public service announcement to help combat dogfighting, upon Vick's release from prison. In December, after consulting with psychiatrists, PETA withdrew the offer for the TV spot, and in January, we called on NFL Commissioner Goodell to require that Vick undergo a brain scan and full psychological evaluation before any decisions were made about the future of his football career.

Somehow the opposite news was spread through the advertising world, where the story started and hit AdAge.com. I'm curious to know why in the month of May this happened?

Below was is my original post:

Yep, you read this right. According to AdAge.com Atlanta Falcons former quarterback Michael Vick is reportedly "in talks" to be a spokesperson for PETA. He's ready to do a series of ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals when he's released from jail later in May. Vick wants to clean-up his image as a dog-killer and reenter society with the problems stemming from his dog fighting business a thing of the past.

You know, as silly as it reads and sounds, Vick may just be able to do it. It depends on the commercial and how it's done. If it comes off as Vick just proclaiming his love for dogs, I'm not so sure. (See my video) But if it's done as more of a documentary style, then yes. That would work.

Everyone deserves a second chance, and that's certainly true for Vick. But let's be honest, too. Michael Vick is very concerned he will not be able to achieve the lifestyle he once enjoyed again. He wants the bling. He also wants to play football and knows that's the only way he's going to have even a snowballs' chance in the hell he's created for himself to do that.

I root for Vick because I met him at a 1999 EA Sports Super Bowl party in Atlanta and when Vick was still in college but a star, and I was really shocked at how much a fish-out-of-water he seemed to be. I really believe he surrounded himself with the wrong kind of people at a very young age and didn't know any better.

Now he does, but what a price he's paid over the last two years.

More on this soon.