updated 8:57 a.m. ET Oct. 22, 2008

SURRY, Va. - While his lawyers appeared in front of a judge in Virginia, Michael Vick was back in Leavenworth, Kan., still doing time and still off the NFL’s radar screen. Officially, anyway.

“It’s not something we need to address at this time,” a league spokesman said Tuesday.

True enough.

But somebody better remember to circle July 20, 2009, on commissioner Roger Goodell’s calendar. That’s Vick’s projected release date, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, and training camp will be just around the corner by then. Goodell has shown good instincts during his brief run as the league’s judge and jury. But the day Vick becomes a free man, the commissioner’s smarts, patience and sense of fairness will be tested like few times before.

As an issue, Vick will be radioactive. What he did was indefensible. The first time around, his story was a combustible mix of celebrity, race, cruelty to animals, gambling and a few other topics that a 24/7 news cycle didn’t need any help turning into hype.

Help came, anyway, in the form of a passionate, well-organized and well-funded animal-rights lobby. Protestors will be out in force this time, too, along with threats to boycott any team that hires Vick and twist the arms of as many sponsors as they can.

Once he’s served his time, though, Vick is entitled to the same measured discipline Goodell has been handing out since he moved into the big office at league headquarters. The commish insisted on more authority over the league’s conduct policy, and hasn’t been afraid to make the punishment fit the crime. But as befits someone who gets to play both judge and jury, he’s shown flexibility in his sentences, too.

Roughly six weeks after Vick plead guilty to a federal dogfighting conspiracy charge, a Cincinnati defensive back was riding in a car stopped by police and admitted having marijuana in his Super Bowl backpack. Putting aside the question of how anybody on the Bengals would even know what a Super Bowl backpack looks like, Goodell suspended the player for the 2007 opener.

The month after that, a Minnesota defensive tackle arrested twice over the summer — for marijuana possession in Texas and fighting with police in Florida — got a two-game suspension. Two chronic offenders of the league’s substance-abuse policy were given season-long suspensions. Bengals receiver Chris Henry was suspended indefinitely in June — after his fifth arrest in the last three years — only to have the suspension cut to four games in July. A Broncos receiver similarly had his three-game suspension — following three arrests over the summer — trimmed to the 2008 opener.

Just last week, Adam “Pacman” Jones went back on indefinite suspension only six weeks after he was pardoned on a previous 17-month suspension. Goodell reserved a final decision on the length of the suspension until after the Cowboys’ game in Washington on Nov. 16, by which time an evaluation will be on his desk describing Pacman’s compliance with rules and treatment plans set out by the NFL and the team.

Not much information has leaked out on how Vick’s rehabilitation has gone. What little we know comes from Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who’s stayed in touch with his former star and said recently he wanted to see Vick back in the NFL someday — just not in Atlanta.

“He’s written me and I’ve answered him,” Blank told ESPN.com at the owners meeting in Florida last week. “I certainly wish Michael well in the future. I believe in second chances. I believe in third chances. That doesn’t mean I believe in forever chances. But I do believe he’s capable of redemption and learning from his mistakes.”

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Blank has also said Vick told him he’s washing pots and pans for 12 cents an hour and staying in shape by playing quarterback for both sides in prison yard football games. The owner said he would be willing to plead Vick’s case to Goodell.

“If I thought that Michael had redeemed himself and if Roger asked me what I felt, based on my knowledge and my own sensitivity about Michael, I certainly would be supportive of him, because I think he would have paid his debt to society,” Blank said.

There are a lot of ifs involved, and most of the sentences they begin also include the words “Vick,” “responsibility” and “remorse.” But court papers filed in Virginia show he plans to plead guilty to state dogfighting charges that, strange as it sounds, could get him out of the federal pen early and into a halfway house for the remainder of his 23-month sentence.

By admitting he violated Virginia law, state prosecutors get their pound of flesh without tacking on additional jail time. By resolving the case, his lawyers ensure that Vick can qualify for early release to a halfway house — assuming he’s qualified as a model prisoner — and begin training in earnest.

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He will be rusty and dragging a reputation as a me-first NFL personality with a questionable work ethic behind him. But Vick is still just 29, and no matter his real feelings, he at least will have learned a few things about consequences.

Either way, Goodell will be holding all the cards.

Speculation has centered on a yearlong suspension, though the commissioner can leave Vick in limbo, if only to remove the temptation from any owner interested in bringing the circus to his town. Or he can decide, the way Virginia did, that Vick’s time served was time enough.

Blank won’t hire Vick back, but he’s willing to serve as a reference for another owner — Jerry Jones and Al Davis come to mind — who might.

“He made a mistake, he made a series of mistakes, but he’s been through the legal process and is paying his debt. Once that’s done,” Blank said, “he’s entitled to move on with his life again.”

True enough.

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