After an 11-day break from game action the Revs are gearing up for a trip to Seattle against the Sounders on Thursday night followed by a Sunday game at Gillette against Real Salt Lake. The 6-6-6 Revs will play their first-ever game in Seattle.

Seattle sits at second in the Western Division and haven’t lost at home in Qwest Field since April, where they average about 20,000 fans per game. The travel and the new field will add an extra variable to the Revs game.

“It’s a problem,” head coach Steve Nicol said. “It’s a long trip but at the same time they have to do it as well. I think going there isn’t the problem. I think the biggest problem is Sunday, we’re going again on Sunday. Had we just been going there to play then have a free week, but I mean apart from Sunday, Thursday’s going to be a real tough game they’ve been great at home.”

Nicol will miss his second game in a row on Thursday because of the two-game suspension he received after being issued a red card on August 1 against Toronto FC at Gillette. Nicol will travel with the team but will not have any contact before or during the game with assistant coach Paul Mariner taking over for the second straight game.

The team also learned earlier in the week that forward Taylor Twellman will miss the rest of the season while recovering from concussive symptoms he suffered in a game a year ago this August. Twellman had been on the disabled list retroactive to June 26 after appearing in two games, including the one in which he scored his 100th career goal.

“We kind of had a feeling it was going to end up like that,” midfielder Steve Ralston said. “Obviously we were hoping for the better but we understand how important it is for him just to get healthy and if that means to wait and come back to play next year that’s great. The most important thing is his health. You can’t replace a player like that. We all try to step up, score some more g0als.”

The trip to Seattle is the only road game for the month of August. The Revs will play three home games in a row starting Sunday with Real Salt Lake followed by San Jose and Kansas City. New England still has games in hand against every team in the Eastern Division.

“Earlier in the season you can get away with a bad performances or missed chances,” Ralston said. “But we’re in the part of the season here where we need to be focused and everything needs to be better. We’ve done quite well at home this season so hopefully we’ll do good during that stretch but we usually don’t look that far down the road. Honestly we’re looking forward to Thursday and playing Seattle but it will be nice to be at home and play in front of our fans.”

Another franchise player, another preseason injury. Haven’t we seen this before? Steve Smith, Carolina Panthers wide receiver, left Monday’s practice with a right shoulder injury. Initial reports from Smith’s agent Derrick Fox indicated he will be out a minimum of two weeks but we all know how that goes. Smith tangled up with cornerback Chris Gamble yesterday evening in a workout without pads. Losing Jake Delhomme’s No. 1 target (1,421 yards and 78 catches in 2008) would be a huge blow for Carolina if the injury persists.

Last week Carolina also lost starting defensive tackle Maacke Kemoeatu for the season with a torn achilles. Over the weekend Tampa Bay Bucaneers receiver Antonio Bryant opted to get arthroscopic knee surgery after not being able to participate in practice because of a torn meniscus in his left knee suffered last season.

So as most teams head into Week 1 of preseason games, the question that is posed every August is posed yet again: should the NFL preseason be shortened to prevent more injuries?

As of Monday there were roughly 100 players listed with injuries, with about 65 on the physically unable to preform/injury reserve list. That’s only an average of three injured players a team but some teams like the Lions and Saints have as many as seven players listed with injuries. While most are minor hamstring strains or sore shoulders, it still leaves a player vulnerable for the unpredictability of the preseason game.

So what’s the resolution? Well Tom Brady didn’t play any of the Patriot’s four preseason games last year because of a right foot injury and we all know what happened in the first quarter of his first regualr season game last year. Yet Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer broke his nose in a game last preseason that required him to undergo surgery and Redskins defensive end Jason Taylor injured his knee in a blowout preseason loss last August.

Yes, the NFL is a contact sport. Yes, there are going to be injuries (Smith’s, after all, took place on a practice field). But can the NFL  prevent some preseason player losses by shortening the schedule? Does a pro-football player really need four preseason games to get adjusted to the game time situations even with the intensity of training camp and team scrimmages? While the scrimmages do not possess the same game time atmosphere and preparation, most starters don’t even enter the third quarter of a preseason game. If the NFL preseason were shortened to two games with a majority of starters on the field for the entire game, would it not create the same results as partially playing in four games albeit in a more efficient manner?

Let’s try to forget this past weekend’s demise of the Red Sox and move on to a bit of a lighter subject — Twitter. By now most people are aware of the social networking phenomenon that allows people to inform others about every detail of their lives through status updates. Athletes in particular have taken the Twitter scene by storm. Some of the very people who curse their lack of privacy are now giving millions of fans an up-to-the-minute recap of their life. How ironic.

Boston athletes such as Randy Moss, Vince Wilfork, Paul Pierce and the ever-interesting Stephon Marbury have all been bitten by the Twitter bug. While most Tweets are meant to be fun and funny, last week the Boston Herald reported that Celtics forward ’Big Baby’ Glen Davis used his Twitter account to voice his frustrations with the team over his lack of a contract. Come to find out, Davis claimed the Tweets were posted from a fake Twitter account. Dun, dun, dun. Whether Big Baby was just being a big baby about his contract or not the bigger question is the validity of these athletes Twitter accounts.

Millions of fans have been following their favorite athletes on Twitter in order to feel closer to the athlete or to see what they do away from the field. Yet with fake accounts popping up all over the place Twitter could soon create more harm than good. From Shaquille O’Neal to Tony LaRussa fake Tweets have created quite the controversy. LaRussa filed a lawsuit against the web site because a Twittering imposter posted comments about his drunk driving incident and the deaths of two of players earlier in the season. The site does not currently have a way to detect fake accounts but may in the near future if such incidents continue.

Not only do the fake accounts hamper the purpose of the site but it seems only a matter of time before a team loses a game because of a Tweet posted by an overzealous athlete. Teams have started to enforce rules about how and when athletes can use Twitter. The ever insightful Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinc0 claims he plans to Tweet after his first touchdown this season (that is if Cincinnati can even make it to the endzone) but not if the NFL has any say in the matter. The league already has a rule in place banning electronic devices from cell phones to lap tops during game time. That probably won’t stop Ochocinco though. Recently players have been fined taking their Tweeting freedoms too far. Charger’s cornerback Antonio Cromartie was fined for $2500 by the San Diego for Tweeting about the team’s food spread and their Superbowl loss. The trend may continue if athletes decide to reveal too much information to fans and media alike.

It seems the media isn’t quite sure how to handle Twitter also known as the athlete’s public diary. Can a story be written about an athlete’s Tweets? Apparently not in Big Baby’s case. Athletes in one sense have made it easier if not interesting for the media who will pounce on a Tweet about a clubhouse disagreement or otherwise private contract negociations. Some web sites have even made it easier for the media and the obsessive sports fans by seeking out the real athletes on Twitter. But maybe some of the behind-the-scenes clubhouse discussions and player interactions should be left private. Now that decision is up to the athlete.

A Spice Girls song blasted over the Gillette Stadium loud speakers Saturday night. No, it wasn’t a reunion concert, thankfully. It was a pre-game warm-up song for the Revolution and L.A. Galaxy. The song no doubt welcomed Spice spouse David Beckham to Foxboro along with 26,623 nearly filling the lower bowl at Gillette.

The 2-1 Galaxy win was also a welcome site to Beckham. But it was his teammate Landon Donovan who deserved the attention Saturday, controlling the field early on and scoring a goal worthy of SportsCenter’s ”Top Plays” in the first half.

Donovan’s goal in the 21st minute took some momentum out of a surging Revs team. Revs defender Darrius Barnes attempted to clear a ball floating near the Revs net but instead it ricocheted towards Donovan at the right side of the net. Donovan captured it and struck the volley into the left corner past a diving Matt Reis.

“It bounced up in the air,” said Donovan, the U.S. National Team’s leading scorer. “My initial thought was shoot, my second thought was maybe bring it down. I just thought I’d take a swing at it and see. At that point I’m just trying to make real good contact and I hit it perfectly.”

The Revs fought the rest of the quarter for the equalizer but to no avail. Steve Ralston and Kenny Mansally both had good chances in front of the net but either shot wide or were taken over by Galaxy defenders.

A Galaxy goal from Jovan Kirovski in the 52nd minute seemed to create more of an urgency in the Revs, who had scored 15 of 19 regular season goals in the second half. Yet the Revs could not put a run together, even with scoring threat Shalrie Joseph in the regular season starting lineup for the first time since June 13.

“You can’t give a team like L.A. a two goal start,” Revs assistant coach Paul Mariner said. “We’ve got quality all over the field, Landon’s a constant threat, Beck’s with the passing, they pick a good spot in this one.”

A total of 26 fouls were committed between the two teams with Beckham’s involvement in many of the scuffles. The aggressive play paid off for the Revs in the 83rd minute. Kenny Mansally was tripped up by Galaxy defender Omar Gonzalez on a drive in the box, resulting in a penalty kick for the Revs. Ralston took the kick, making a run for the ball before slowing up as L.A. goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts dove too soon. Ricketts watched it sail into the back right corner of the net, cutting the Galaxy’s lead in half.

Yet the goal seemed to come too late as the Revs rushed in trying to tie the score in the final minutes. The Galaxy dominated possession in stoppage time, foiling a comeback.

“Once we went down we kind of lost our heads,” Ralston said. “We started going every time instead of passing and keeping the ball. We were so direct in trying to get it all back at one time. Then the ball is turned over and we’re in a bad spot. We had to realize there was time to come back and just keep playing.”

To top off the Revs night, head coach Steve Nicol served the first of a two-game suspension, leaving Mariner in his place. Nicol received the suspension after he was awarded a red card in the final minutes of last Saturday’s game against Toronto FC. He will also sit out the August 20 match in Seattle.

The loss for the Revs broke a four-game unbeaten streak and was the first regular-season loss at Gillette since May. Meanwhile, the Galaxy won at Gillette for the first time in team history dating back to 1999.

“I thought last year we came here and played pretty well and only got a point out of it,” Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena said. “This year I think we came with more quality and certainly I think we did a good job of controlling the game.”

The Galaxy have been one of the hottest teams in the MLS, having not lost a regular season match since June 20. While the team has suffered multiple distractions in the wake of David Beckham, it has not slowed down. Donovan, who created controversy in questioning Beckham’s play, credited his teammate on Saturday with dealing with the situation.

“Unfortunately for David no one wants to hear those things said about them,” Donovan said. “Especially through a book but to his credit he’s been a man about it. He’s taken it like a man and done a great job of moving past it and I can’t say a lot of people would have done that.”

The Revs won’t have to face the surging Galaxy again during the regular season. The team has  a much needed 11-day break before its next match in Seattle.

While the Patriots’ Tom Brady has been the big name around Gillette lately, he might have to step aside Saturday night when David Beckham hits the turf in Foxboro. The LA Galaxy will face the Revolution Saturday night for the first time since July 4 in L.A., when the Galaxy handed the Revs their last MLS loss, a 1-0 shutout.

While Boston is no stranger to athletes-turned-divas, Beckham has taken it to the international level. The English footballer (as in soccer player) created his fame on the fields of Manchester United but is now probably more famous for his Armani advertisements and the controversy he has created in the MLS.

Beckham signed with the LA Galaxy in 2007 but it was this during this past MLS offseason, when the Brit requested the Galaxy loan him to Italian club AC Milan, that the trouble brewed. Beckham ended up extending his three-month loan to a six-month loan, well past the MLS opening day. Teammates expressed disappointment, Galaxy captain Landon Donovan questioned his commitment and fans berated him with criticism.

Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl released a book two weeks before Beckham’s return to the league called “The Beckham Experiment.” In it, Donovan is quoted extensively on Beckham’s lack of effort and attitude. Beckham later responded that Donovan’s comments were “unprofessional” and so the teammate saga brewed.

After his season debut with the Galaxy on July 16 in New Jersey against the New York Red Bulls, boos and derogatory posters greeted him. In his first game back in LA four days later, the Galaxy played an international match with none other than AC Milan, the very team he had spent six months with, adding to fans’ anger. At one point, in response to some jeers from the crowd, Beckham approached the stands and prompted a fan to confront him on the field. The fan jumped down from his seat but was quickly tackled by security.

So this weekend, the legend that is David Beckham will come to Gillette. Yet the Revs refuse to focus on the distractions and aim to keep their four-game unbeaten streak (2-0-2) alive.

On top of the fanfare, head coach Steve Nicol will be missing the game because of an ejection from the Revs’ match last Saturday against division rival Toronto FC.

“We’re just concentrating on the game and how they go about it and how we go about it,” Nicol said. “Don’t get me wrong — it’s great that we’re going to have a big crowd and all the other stuff, but the most important thing for us (is) when we go on the field we do what we need to do. Obviously I won’t be [on the field], and I’m disappointed in that, but I will be there so Paul (Mariner) and I will be communicating during the game so we’ll go from there.”

Mariner has been Nicol’s assistant coach since joining the Revs in 2004. He will take Nicol’s place in Saturday’s match. Nicol’s last game suspension came in September of 2007.

With nearly a full team back on the field for Saturday’s match after having lost 78 man-games this season on 17 separate injuries, the Revs look to keep their unbeaten streak against the Galaxy alive. The Galaxy has never won in seven previous visits to Gillette dating back to 1999.

The Revs will need to step up their offense with Donovan on the field. The Galaxy trump the Revs in goals scored and shots on goal, with Donovan the team leader in both categories. New England has scored 19 goals in regular season play while 15 of them have come in the second half.

“I’d like to score some early goals,” said Steve Ralston. “I feel like we’re always having to come from behind and maybe it’s the fact that we’re pushing forward and bringing extra attackers on the field. We’ve been able to tie games and go for the win but in a perfect scenario we’d like to score first. It’s a struggle to do so this year, we’re always having to fight from behind and that’s difficult to do. You can’t always, you can’t do that if good teams are going to make you pay.”

Three of the next four Revs’ games in August will be at home in Gillette where the the team is 4-1-3 in MLS competition. With a league low 17 games played, the Revs hope to gain some ground in the Eastern Division standings.

Though Beckham takes the stage Saturday night at Gillette, the Revs won’t be judging or paying much attention to the circus that follows him. More than anything, they’ll just be looking to keep their streak alive.

While the David Ortiz-Manny Ramirez steroids scandal didn’t surprise many in Sox Nation it still hurt. It was a like a deep cut that was ignored, got infected and now has to be cleaned out and a bandage put over it to stop the fresh bleeding. The announcement last Thursday was embarrassing, hurtful and confusing but while Sox fans try to figure out how to react, the rest of the baseball world is in an uproar.

Ortiz and Ramirez share the limelight once again, not for a big Sox win as would have been customary in the past, but for being the most recent to come out on the 2003 list of performance enhancing drug users. The same list that includes the name of Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. Remember the scandal that surrounded the player Sox fans love to hate?  Many critics seem to have forgotten Rodriguez’s denial and eventual admission to steroid use right before the start of the baseball season. He then convenienly missed the first month of the season with hip surgery as the news rocked the baseball world. 

Ortiz’s hypocritical statements about steroid users after the A-Rod scandal pale in comparison to Rodriguez’s outright denial in prime time to Katie Couric in his ’60 Minutes’ interview.

The Boston sports media berated the third baseman after the interview and eventual confirmation of his steroid use on the list. A-roid, A-Fraud, A-…use your imagination. Red Sox nation reveled in the fact they had more ammunition to fire into a heated Sox-Yanks debate. Now it’s only fair for the New York media to lay its harsh words on Ortiz and Ramirez. The New York Times actually sympathized with Sox fans. But whether we like it or not, the Sox and Yanks are more or less on equal ground in terms of the steroids debate.

While the debates rage about the Red Sox World Series titles being ‘tainted’  the scandal doesn’t seem to have affected Ortiz or the team, yet. Since the news broke on Thursday, the Sox haven’t lost a game after having lost seven of their previous ten games. With the upcoming four-game series against the Yankees in New York this weekend it should be interesting to see how the official Sox-Yanks steroids era begins.

An eventful weekend for Major League Baseball leading up to the trading deadline started early with Mark Buehrle’s perfect game and ended with inductions to the Basbeball Hall of Fame. Then, there was the death of a Phillies fan sandwiched in between.

With the Hall of Fame inductions taking place on Sunday, MLB shifted the focus to Cooperstown, where Jim Rice and Ricky Henderson received their bronze plaque honors. Amidst discussions of the future of the Hall and whether or not to induct players from the “steroid era” at least one forbidden player may be getting the nod.

According to the New York Daily News, MLB commissioner Bud Selig was encouraged to reconsider his 20-year ban on Pete Rose from the Hall by fellow Hall of Famer and friend Hank Aaron. If he were to be reinstated, he could only be inducted into the Hall by the 65 living members of the Veterans Committee. While Rose’s cheating came in the form of betting on the game instead of muscle enhancement, it still raises the question of how many cheaters the Hall will take.

The 22-year-old Philly fan was found unconscious in a Citizen’s Bank Park parking lot after a bar brawl on Saturday during a Phillies-Cardinals game. The man had been a guest at a bachelor party taking place at a pub called McFadden’s attached to the park. After disagreements with another group escalated to a fight inside the bar both parties were asked to leave. The fight continued outside and when the police arrived the man was unresponsive.

That same day, a fan in the crowd used a laser pointer to pinpoint St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols while he was at the plate, causing a delay in the game and a search for the fan.

With the baseball trading deadline looming less than five days away, the NFL needed big news to kick off the unofficial start of its season this week with the opening of training camp. The league announced on Thursday that 2010 NFL draft with become a three-day affair with the first round airing in prime time on Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. The steadily increasing number of viewers made the league confident a three-day draft could be a success.

Apparently, Gillette Stadium has become the mecca of international soccer. Earlier this summer, it was SuperLiga 2009, where two Mexican clubs Santos Laguna and Atlas invaded the turf. A few weeks ago, the CONCACAF Gold Cup brought the US national team, Haiti, Grenada and Honduras to the stadium. Sunday night, Gillette became Little Italy.

As part of the World Football Challenge, an international competition taking place in stadiums across America, Italian Serie A clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan battled to a 2-0 Inter win before more than 42,000 fans at Gillette Sunday. The two rival Milan clubs met outside Italy for just the third time in 101 years of play.

Inter Milan’s Diego Milito started the scoring early in the fourth minute on an unassisted goal into the left bottom corner of the net. He added a second goal in the 75th minute after getting just enough on a pass from Dejan Stankovic to bounce it over diving AC Milan goalkeeper Zeljko Kalac into the back of the net.

“I feel very confident,” Milito, Man of the Match said after the game. “Obviously scoring two goals today is a good start but certainly the focus will be for the league play and I hope to continue to do well and help the team win many games to honor the shirt I’m wearing every time I put it on.”

An amusing moment came in the 34th minute when referee Jorge Gonzalez accidently issued a red card — the ticket to an automatic ejection — to AC Milan’s Ronaldinho. Arguably one of the best players in the world, Ronaldinho had merely tugged on Gonzalez’ jersey to get his attention about a play when the ref pulled out a red card. Realizing his mistake and the  gasps from the overwhelming crowd he quickly found the yellow card waving it with a wide grin on his face.

Inter kept the pressure on Kalac with 16 shots, seven of which were on goal, compared to AC Milan’s eight shots, four on goal. While possession time fairly even Inter created better chances and kept the ball longer. Inter turned over the ball nine times but AC Milan could not get past Inter goalkeeper Jesus Cesar.

“I think we did a lot of good things,” AC Milan head coach Leonardo said. “The training session and preparation and everything we did was because we had a lot of problems and injuries. We’ve had a lot of players that have been injured in the last year so that’s why it’s not easy to manage matches and preparation.”

Inter lost its first two matches in the World Football Challenge tying Club America 1-1 last weekend before dropping a 2-0 match to English club Chelsea on Tuesday. AC Milan played for the third time in five days Sunday night having lost its two matches to Chelsea and Club America 2-1.

“We played three matches in this tournament in the last five days,” Leonardo said. “Inter today had been waiting for the last five days to prepare for this match. To play a match every two days is impossible. I think to win this team needed prepartion, time and some new players to come back from injuries. But what they demonstrated these past few days is enough to for to think we have a good team even if we had three defeats. We have to look in a positive way that it prepared the team.”

AC Milan has been trying to regain the attention of LA Galaxy star David Beckham who played for Milan on loan last year. Interestingly enough, Beckham will be visiting Gillette August 8 in a Revs-Galaxy match.

Summer after summer of his own elite baseball training camps have led up to a summer job teaching 10-year olds how to field ground balls. Not exactly what Zack Cox had in mind for this summer, but then again that’s only his side job.

Cox, an All-Star third baseman for the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cape Cod Baseball League, achieved the childhood dream of many on Thursday night by playing at Fenway Park in the Cape Cod League All-Star Game.

“This is definitely burned in there,” Cox said of his Cape League memories. “Playing at Fenway Park, I don’t anything will top this, I don’t think anything can top getting to play at Fenway Park. Even if it was just for four-and-a-half minutes.”

Those four-and-a-half minutes were important for the West as Cox, Co-MVP of the game, led the West Division to a 3-0 win over the East. The University of Arkansas product started and batted second for the West, helping to score the first run of the game with a triple off the center field wall to drive in Falmouth’s Todd Cunningham in the bottom of the  first. Cox came in to score later that inning and added his second RBI of the game with a single to left field in the bottom of the second.

Cox’s Co-MVP Chris Sale, of the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, pitched six pitches of scorless relief for the East. Sale, from Florida Gulf Coast, was similarly awestruck at the opportunity to pitch at Fenway, noting that pitching in front of his family in a major-league park was nervewracking.

“First off it was a great experience coming to Fenway Park,” Sale said. “That’s a once in a lifetime thing unless you make it to the major leagues. As far as coming out here and shagging B.P. in the outfield and watching balls go in and out in the Home Run Derby, it was awesome. Almost like it didn’t happen. Like it didn’t happen like I’m going to wake up soon from this.”

Sale reached 95 MPH on the radar gun and is expected to go high in the draft next spring along with Cox. Cox’ success with the wooden bat was perhaps most impressive. He leads the Kettleers with a .364 average through 16 games and is tied for third on the team with nine RBI since arriving late to the team because of Arkansas’ competition in the College World Series. He credits his dad for making him use wood when he was younger during practice.

The importance of practice for youngsters rubbed off on Cox who, in between morning workouts and night games, helps coach six to 12-year olds at the Cape Cod League camps. Cox works in the ground ball station teaching the kids the basic fundamentals of the game in hopes they, too, can make it Fenway for a Cape League All-Star game someday.

While Cox’s preference for the wood was engrained (no pun intended) in him as a child, some of his fellow Cape Leaguers didn’t have the same advantage. Those who participated in the Home Run Derby were stymied by the heavier, denser bats with the lack of pop for which the aluminum bats are known. Harwich’s Connor Powers won the derby with two blasts in the final round to edge out Cotuit’s Stanley Rupp after they each had three in the first round.

“Having a Home Run Derby with aluminum bats is amazing,” Derby participant Harold Martinez of the Brewster Whitecaps said. “That would be crazy [at Fenway]. Wood bats, though, that’s real baseball, but it’s always fun to have real wood.”

Either way Cox, Martinez and the rest of the All-Stars last night saw a glimpse of what their futures could be like roaming the field and dugouts at Fenway.

“This is obviously a big step towards professional baseball for me,” Cox said. “It’s a league where you come in with the best college players and play with a wood bat and it’s been awfully fun making that adjustment and playing with these guys.”

DJ Bean contributed to this report.

The last time Michael Vick threw a touchdown pass was Dec. 31, 2006 in a 24-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The seven-yard pass to Warrick Dunn in the first quarter of the last game of the regular season was the last time we would see Vick throw a pass for the next two and a half years.

On Monday, Vick served the last day of his 23-month sentence, the last two through home confinement, for dogfighting charges. The ankle bracelet was removed and the media world swarmed in anticipation of his next step.

That next step came Wednesday when we learned Vick will meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell later this week to discuss his conditional reinstatement to the league conveniently just in time for NFL training camps which begins next week.

With PETA peering down Goodell’s neck hoping for a psychological examination before the reinstatement, the commissioner has a lot to consider.  While Goodell has heard from animal rights activists that met with Vick during his sentencing many are still not convinced of his remorse.

Goodell’s speculated that Thursday or Friday session with Vick should get the ball rolling for the ex-Atlanta Falcons quarterback. Assuming all goes well, the indefinite suspension on Vick will be lifted and he will be conditionally reinstated, meaning if signed with a team he could participate in training camp. Yet Goodell will need to make a conclusive reinstatment or a defined suspension period before September 1 when NFL rosters must be finalized.

The bigger question floating around the sports world is who will take Vick?

The quarterback has only been able to throw around a football in his backyard the past two months under home confinement, and by most accounts, is not NFL ready. While he reportedly hired and worked out today with Tom Shaw, a performance trainer who has trained Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in the past, Vick has a lot of work to do in little time.

The Jets and Giants have already publicly ruled themselves out of the picture. The Raiders’ may have been a viable option — but dog lover’s in their front office may have other opinions. The Patriots have also been on the radar. Bill Belichick may be the best to handle the baggage that comes along with Vick, yet also has his hands full Brady making his own comeback.