What about Bob? Glauber's NFL Blog

This is easily the strangest week leading up to training camp we've experienced in 23 years of covering the NFL.

This is usually one of the best times of the year, especially for a football writer, with all kinds of stories beckoning with the beginning of the new season: The Patriots are ready for a run. The Colts are gearing up for a Super Bowl defense. Can the Giants put it together? Will the Jets take the next step after last year's stunning playoff run?

But until the Michael Vick situation is resolved, we can't get into the meat of what training camp is all about. Something should happen by tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest, and perhaps even later today, given how fluid the situation has become.

But one way or another, the Falcons want his situation resolved - at least from a football standpoint - before players take the field on Thursday for their first training camp practice at Flowery Branch, Ga.

My gut feeling is that Vick won't get anywhere near the team's facility, which has already been picketed by a few dozen protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Those protests will invariably continue and even escalate, especially if the Falcons take no immediate action and Vick shows up on Friday, the day after he's arraigned on charges related to an illegal dog-fighting operation.

What happens to Vick? "All options are on the table," one league source told me of the talks aimed at seeking a resolution. That means Roger Goodell can still issue a suspension, as can the team. And it's not out of the realm of possibility that Vick is given a leave of absence, which seems like the most prudent course of action given the swirling controversy.

If Vick refuses to take a leave, or if the team and league don't take any action, it would create for a disastrous training camp situation, something first-year head coach Bobby Petrino simply doesn't want. It's enough that Petrino faces the likelihood that Joey Harrington will be his starting quarterback on opening day; having Vick around, especially given the virtual certainty that he'd be suspended at some point, is simply an untenable situation.

Stay tuned on this one. We can't really move forward until it's taken care of one way or another.