If Atlanta Falcons players want to show their support for Michael Vick, they can.

They can set up informational picket lines at shopping malls. They can offer their opinions to local and national reporters.

But if Falcons players want to make displays of support for Vick during an NFL game, that's another story.

Four players -- Roddy White, Alge Crumpler, DeAngelo Hall and Chris Houston -- each were fined $10,000, and Joe Horn was fined $7,500 by the NFL for their tributes to Vick. They violated uniform regulations during a Monday night game against New Orleans.

They got off lightly.

They should have been suspended for one game, without pay.

Vick is not some fallen warrior who was carried off the field on his shield. He is not a political prisoner who has been wrongly accused, convicted and sentenced in some type of show trial.

Vick is not Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskins free safety who was gunned down in his home by a greedy thug.

Vick is a felon serving 23 months for federal dogfighting charges.

Vick let down his team, several communities and his employer. Yet his teammates made their displays of support hours after Vick had been sentenced.

White wore a T-shirt under his jersey that said, "Free Mike Vick." Horn pulled up White's jersey to display the T-shirt.

Crumpler, Hall and Houston wore black eye strips with written tributes to Vick.

People were doing the same thing around FedEx Field on Dec. 2 in honor of Taylor, who had died five days earlier. That made sense. That was done to honor the life of a young man who was entering the prime of his professional career.

The Falcons' display made little sense. It was a tribute to a teammate who was victim of his disregard for animals and contempt for the law.

Falcons owner Arthur Blank has made it clear he's upset with Vick. Falcons players are free to disagree with Blank.

But they are not free to do it on Blank's dime, during a nationally televised game, as Blank sits in the broadcast booth expressing his disappointment in Vick, a young man in whom he had much invested.

When the players put on their uniforms, their focus should be on the game.

And given that the Falcons are 3-11, football obviously is a challenge for them.

But everything is a challenge for the Falcons this season. Their coach, Bobby Petrino, quit after 13 games.

Wednesday, Blank thought he was set to hire Bill Parcells to become the Falcons' vice president for football operations. But Parcells decided to work for the Miami Dolphins.

Beaten by Miami. This season, that's the ultimate in humiliation.

The Falcons are not so much a football team as a traveling soap opera.

And the disconnect these five players have for understanding the difference between right and wrong, legal and illegal, responsibility and irresponsibility is troubling.

They should know better. Taking money from their lucrative paychecks is not enough to make that point.

Taking them off the field for a game would be a good start.
Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or pwoody@timesdispatch.com.