Mike Celizic

Michael Vick is getting out of jail Wednesday. If things go as he hopes, sometime this summer he’ll be cleared to play again by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Somebody will hire him. We can be pretty much sure of that. Vick has talents not found in many people. It’s talent worth taking a chance on by a team that is desperate for offensive help.

He’s got some hoops to jump through before he can play. First, there’s two months of house confinement during which he will be able to leave home for a $10-an-hour construction job created by a Virginia Tech booster just for him. Then, he has to show “genuine remorse” to Goodell about the dog fighting and cruelty to animals that ended the good life as he knew it.

Vick’s legal troubles won’t be over, either. He’s still in the process of filing for bankruptcy, having managed to run through money before his arrest at a rate that would impress even Mike Tyson. There are lawsuits filed by creditors to face.

Vick has to get rid of all the sycophantic leeches surrounding him. He has to understand he can’t be the sole means of support for every slacker ne’er-do-well who hung around on the streets with him when he was a kid.

For NFL teams, when it comes to Vick, it’s a buyers’ market, and those buyers had best  beware. The league’s most prominent felon comes with instant controversy and demonstrators. He might convince Goodell of his remorse, but convincing PETA and the SPCA won’t be as easy. Then there will be the fans who won’t let him forget the hideous things he did to the dogs he killed and the ones he put in the fighting pit. These are not issues to be taken lightly.

And it won’t be clear for a long time — maybe an entire season — if Vick can be a winning quarterback in the NFL. He’s been out of commission and training for two years. That’s a long time in professional sports. He wasn’t a successful quarterback when he went to prison. It’s not clear that he ever will be. Pocket passing, after all, is not his forte, and the NFL lives and dies on quarterbacks working out of the pocket.

But a lot of people are convinced Vick can still have an impact. In today’s NFL, the wildcat offense is increasingly in vogue. And if he wanted to come back as a wide receiver or a running back — positions for which he has all the necessary skills — he could become a multiple threat back, a guy who can take a direct snap and run the halfback option. It’s too bad the single wing isn’t still around. He’d be great in it.

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But somebody will decide Vick is worth a shot. Whichever team it is will say that he’s paid his debt to society, been deemed to be genuinely remorseful and, since our society is built on forgiveness, deserves another chance.

That will all be lip service. Ask other ex-felons how much good remorse and paying their debt to society does in finding a high-paying job on the outside. Vick doesn’t deserve a second chance for any reason other than that he has those wonderful skills that teams need.