Pete Prisco has an interesting article up about Michael Vick's future in the NFL. He, once again, highlights the fact that Vick was never a good passer, during his time with the Falcons (which is something I've said a lot, before: he makes good receivers bad, because why try when you know he can run you out of trouble?). To make it in the NFL, again, Prisco suggests that Vick needs to have a Donovan McNabb style maturation process from a scrambler to a frightening pocket passer. The problem, though, as I see it, is why you would take the chance that he can become such a quarterback.
As Prisco points out, there are two options for Michael Vick, at this juncture: teams can bring him in as a backup and develop him into a quality start OR they can bring him in and use him as some kind of Wildcat/Spread Option QB. Both of these are things Vick could do, but aren't these also things rookies do? Looking at two teams who drafted quarterbacks last season--the Jets and the Dolphins--, we can see two teams who have done both of those options. The Jets drafted Mark Sanchez in the hopes that he will eventually mature into a quality pocket passer (he won't, of course, but that's beside the point). Similarly, the Dolphins drafted Pat White as a potential Wildcat quarterback (of course, in truth, I think they might have drafted White as Chad Pennington's successor (quick, name another NCAA D-IA quarterback who won four bowl games in college ... oh, wait, Pat White is the only one)). In both cases, these teams got quarterbacks who don't have several NFL seasons under the belts, two years off, and, oh yeah, don't kill dogs as a leisure activity.
Ignoring the baggage that Vick brings, though, it seems to me that a team who wanted a Wildcat quarterback would draft or sign someone like Armani Edwards or another of the myriad of good, spread option quarterbacks who've been floating around, over someone who's older and been out of football for two years. Similarly, gambling on someone to develop into a pocket passer also seems to make more sense if that someone is a rookie.
So, beyond all the off-the-field issues, the real point I want to make is that signing Michael Vick doesn't make any kind of football sense. I mean, if it was someone like Tom Brady coming out of jail, yeah, go ahead and sign him and take a shot, but you have someone who hasn't ever been a good passer (as Prisco points out) and someone who might not be in the best shape to run the Spread Option. If you wanted either of those things, why not sign a rookie?