On July 20th, if everything goes according to plan, if the gears of the American legal system wind down just so, Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, arguably one of the most powerful people in the history of professional sports, will officially run out of time.

On July 20th, if the terms of his incarceration and ongoing home confinement are appropriately met, Michael Vick will have successfully and honorably completed the first stage of his court-determined sentencing and, theoretically, move on to the final stage of his punishment.

The commencement of that final stage, a three-year probationary period, will force Roger Goodell to make a decision that, to date, he has been able to shuffle to bottom of his inbox.

Goodell's "indefinite" suspension of Vick, a suspension completely within his rights as Commissioner, was an easy and PR-savvy card to play when Vick was safely out of sight and out of mind in Leavenworth, Kansas, serving the first 21 months of a 23 month sentence for operating a dog-fighting ring.

Goodell's pronouncement that Vick would have to "show remorse" before he even considered reinstating him seemed perfectly reasonable while Vick was behind bars, and even now, as his every movement is observed 24-hours a day through the use of an electronic monitoring device.

But if, as is widely expected, on July 20th the federal government determines that Michael Vick has served his time and is fit to return to society, albeit in a probationary manner, Roger Goodell might well find that any continued delay regarding his possible reinstatement to the NFL will start to sour, the continued funk of quasi-permanent banishment settling, miasma-like, over the league about which Goodell so clearly and deeply cares.

The three-year probationary period is really the rub for Goodell, for one simple reason; if the Federal government determines that Vick has served enough of his sentence and shown enough contrition to be released into society on the promise of good behavior, then on what basis can Goodell continue to prevent Vick the very opportunity to showcase that promised good behavior?

Now, to be clear, Roger Goodell is under absolutely no obligation to reinstate Michael Vick now or, indeed, at any time in the future. But he is under some obligation, if only one to be reasonable and fair, to lay out what additional terms and conditions, beyond the Federal government's, Vick must meet to earn his way back into the League.

Or he has to say Vick's NFL career is over, permanently.

I certainly don't envy Goodell's position. The situation in which he finds himself is, to be sure, untenable; there is, quite literally, no solution that will not leave him open to criticism and attack from one side or another.

Animal lovers and animal rights activists, on the one side, have promised to make any reinstatement of Vick by the NFL an absolute PR-nightmare, both for the league and whatever team decides he's got enough gas in the tank to take a flyer on; football fans and Vick supporters, on the other, are clamoring that a once-in-a-lifetime-talent be given a chance for redemption, hoping to see him work the magic on a football field that so often left opponents and teammates alike shaking their heads in dumbfounded amazement.

And, of course, there is the racial subtext simmering just below the surface, ready to boil up at any time and enflame an already ignitable situation.

So no, I don't envy Roget Goodell.

But I also can't let him off the hook.

The closest parallel I can think of, the one I keep coming back to, and probably just because it was one that was debated, heatedly and often, around the dining table when I was growing up, is the limbo in which Pete Rose has found himself for the last 20 years.

Granted, Rose voluntarily agreed to a permanent place on Major League Baseball's ineligible list in 1989; however, that agreement allowed him to apply for reinstatement in one year. Since 1997, the year in which he first formally applied for reinstatement, Rose has hung like an albatross around the neck of Commissioner Bud Selig and the rest of MLB. Selig's obfuscation and delay on the matter have only served to further divide the pro- and anti-Roses, drawing a proverbial line in the sand that few seem willing to cross.

Is that the situation Goodell really wants to find himself in, continually deflecting unanswerable questions, trying to explain the unexplainable?

I doubt it.

I'm no Vick apologist. I would never condone or promote the awful activities in which he was involved, namely the torturing and killing of innocent dogs for personal amusement.

But I've not lived a perfect life, either. And I've been given second chances, time and again, so often in fact that they've sometimes been third and fourth chances.

Maybe Roger Goodell doesn't want to give Michael Vick a third or fourth chance, months or years down the road.

But come July 20th, I think he should give him a second.