NFL News and Views

Disgraced former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday.

Vick, who is currently serving a 23-month prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kansas on federal dogfighting charges, filed Chapter 11 papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newport News on Monday claiming to owe between $10 and $50 million to various creditors. The seven largest creditors listed in the court papers are owed a total of about $12.8 million.

The debt includes a $3.75 million pro-rated signing bonus that the Falcons are attempting to recover. After the plea on dogfighting charges, the Falcons tried to recover about $20 million in bonuses Vick earned from 2004 to 2007. But a federal judge held that Vick is entitled to keep all but $3.75 million of the money paid to him for playing football through the 2014 season.

In May this year, a federal judge ordered Vick to repay about $2.5 million to a Canadian bank for defaulting on a loan. The Royal Bank of Canada had sued Vick in September, arguing his guilty plea to a federal dogfighting charge — and the resulting impact on his career — prevented him from repaying the loan.

After pleading guilty last year to financially supporting a Virginia-based dogfighting ring, the disgraced Vick was subsequently suspended indefinitely by the NFL without pay and lost all his major corporate sponsors.

Will Vick every play again? That's the big question. What a lot to lose!

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