Uh oh, this wasn't supposed to happen.  Michael Vick might be getting out of jail a bit sooner than expected, and it could put NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in the position of deciding whether to allow him to play, a full year earlier than he was expecting to.

All of this stems from an article posted on Yahoo! Sports yesterday by Charles Robinson and Jason Cole.  The gist is, Vick is attempting to enter into a program called the Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program, which is only offered at Leavenworth Federal Prison.  Conveniently, that is the same prison that Vick is being transferred to.  By completing this program, Vick would be eligible to knock 12 months off of his 23 month sentence, which would put him up for release in December 2008, rather than the mid-late 2009 release date that was expected.  (check out this mailbag from The Big Lead - fourth e-mail down - it outlines the program better than I can)

The assumption all along has been that Vick would probably face a suspension for the 2010 season, but this obviously moves the schedule up.  Goodell might have to decide whether to suspend him for the 2009 season, meaning that it's possible that we could see Vick on the field after just one more season.

Interestingly, the original ESPN article that outlined his sentence stated that Vick would serve his term at "a still-undetermined federal prison".  This raises a whole lot of questions that need to be answered.  How was it decided that vick would serve his time in Leavenworth?  Was U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, who delivered the Vick sentence, aware of this program?  Might he have given Vick a longer sentence if he had known this was a possibility?

This is all still developing, but it's a story that bears watching.

(hat tip to Sports by Brooks)