PHILADELPHIA — By halftime, the Linc was buzzing: Michael Vick was a Philadelphia Eagle.

Suddenly, no one seemed to care much about the preseason game against the New England Patriots on Thursday night. All that mattered to most fans was the disgraced quarterback had joined their team.

Agent Joel Segal confirmed the signing, shortly before the Philadelphia Eagles announced it in a text message.

The team gave Vick a one-year deal with an option for a second year.

“We don’t need another quarterback, especially him,” fan Donald Crispin said.

Vick, 29, once the NFL’s highest-paid player, has been out of action since 2006.

The former Atlanta Falcons star was convicted in August 2007 of conspiracy and running a dogfighting ring, and served 18 months of a 23-month sentence in federal prison.

He also was suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

Commissioner Roger Goodell conditionally lifted Vick’s suspension July 27, allowing him to sign with a team, practice and play in the last two preseason games.

Once the season begins, Vick can participate in all team activities except games, and Goodell said he would consider Vick for full reinstatement by Week 6 (Oct. 18-19) at the latest.

The Eagles reached the NFC Championship Game last season under quarterback Donovan McNabb, and are looking for their first Super Bowl win.

McNabb has led the Eagles to five NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl appearance in the last eight years, and was rewarded with a $5.3 million raise in the offseason.

The Eagles tore up his old contract with two years remaining, and gave him a new deal worth $24.5 million over the next two seasons.

The team is a surprise landing point for Vick. It was among 26 clubs that said there was no interest in him, but that might have changed when backup Kevin Kolb strained a knee ligament this week.

Kolb’s injury isn’t serious and he’s expected to return next week. The Eagles also have veteran A.J. Feeley

In a shocking incident today, former National Football League (NFL) star Steve McNair was found shot dead at the Nashville condominium as reported by the police authorities. Along with his body, the authorities also found the body of a woman at the scene. According to the report of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper the NFL star had been found to have suffered several gunshot wounds on his body. The 20 year old woman whose body was found alongside has a single gunshot wound in her head. A pistol has also been recovered near his body.

Based on an apparent view, it’s been reported that the whole incident may be a kind of murder-suicide. While no one has been arrested as a suspect in the incident as mentioned by Don Aaron, the Police spokesperson, Nashville has been quoted reporting to the Reuters, “The circumstances surrounding the shooting deaths remain under active investigation.” Don Aaron has also said that Michelle, McNair’s wife, is “very distraught”. The police is not suspecting her of having any involvement in the murder.

Don Aaron reported that the woman lying dead beside Steve, has been identified as Sahel Kazemi, who is said to be a friend of Steve’s. According the various sources the woman was arrested on Thursday when she was stopped by an officer for speeding her car down the Broadway. McNair was present at the time in the car along with this woman.

Since the death has taken place under unnatural circumstances, autopsy will be conducted which is scheduled for Sunday. McNair who has played 13 seasons before his retirement in 2008 has been famous in Nashville for his huge amount of charity works.

I’m a winner, King James proclaimed. So, there you go. That’s his reason for rushing out of the conference finals without so much as a nod to Dwight Howard(notes) and the Orlando Magic. That’s his reason for marching to the bus and letting the Cleveland Cavaliers’ spare parts take care of his responsibilities in the interview room.

Funny, but James stayed on the court to make sure the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks paid respect to him. As it turns out, there’s one thing allowed to happen at the end of a playoff series: Everyone bows down and kisses the King’s ring. Only, LeBron doesn’t have a ring. He’s never won a game in the NBA Finals.

So, yes, maybe they just have to kiss his feet.

“It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that,” James said.

No, nothing like that. Yes, James cares so much that it isn’t possible to be gracious and humbled.

You know me, he told the reporters in Cleveland on Sunday. I’m a competitor. “If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them,” James said. “It doesn’t make sense for me to go over and shake somebody’s hand.”

Here’s the question: Who has the guts to tell him that he sounds like an immature, self-absorbed brat?

Here’s the problem for the Cavaliers and James: No one.

It won’t be Cleveland Cavaliers ownership, front office and coaches. It won’t be the NBA. It won’t be Nike. And it sure won’t be those childhood sycophants who surround James and tell everyone what a brilliant businessman LeBron is because they can answer the phone when corporations call for a famous pitchman.

LeBron doesn’t want to win more than Michael Jordan did, but Jordan could stop and shake a winner’s hand. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird could, too. Julius Erving did. Kobe Bryant(notes). Isiah Thomas led a walkout after losing to the Chicago Bulls after winning two NBA titles, but Joe Dumars never followed him. He stayed and shook Jordan’s hand, the way Jordan had always shook his when the Pistons had beaten him.

“M.J. had stopped, shook my hand and hugged me three straight years that we had beaten them in the playoffs,” Dumars once told me. “There was no way I was walking off the court without shaking the Bulls’ hands.”

Within the Cavs, someone needed to tell James that he embarrassed himself and the franchise, but that won’t happen. They’re too scared of him. Most league executives with knowledge of Cleveland’s operation believe it’s far more of an ownership issue, than basketball operations.

If general manager Danny Ferry and coach Mike Brown privately disdain the ridiculous posing for pictures that James started with his teammates on a 13-game winning streak, the owner is believed to see the foolishness as a marketing dream.

Someone should’ve told James that the pregame Polaroid act was belittling and beneath a championship contender, but it never happened.

All season, the Cavaliers acted too entitled, too arrogant for a team that’s won nothing. They ran out demanding that Mo Williams(notes) be made an All-Star, when the truth bore itself out in the playoffs: Cleveland has one All-Star. Nevertheless, Williams still embarrassed the Cavs with foolish proclamations and guarantees his middling talent couldn’t deliver.

“If you believe in karma with that nonsense,” one Western Conference executive said, “then Cleveland got what was coming to them.”

The Cavaliers are terrified of James. When you’re around them, it’s sometimes embarrassing to watch the way they tip-toe and grovel with him. In their defense, that’s how James wants it. As a childhood prodigy, that’s all LeBron’s ever known. The Cavs are at his mercy until he becomes a free agent in July of 2010, and that isn’t going to change. There’s no chance that he signs an extension this summer, because that would be the end of the drama, the intrigue and LeBron James(notes) isn’t letting that go away.

Now, Ferry goes back to the phones and starts work on surrounding James with championship talent. Cleveland is sure to revisit the Shaquille O’Neal(notes) talks with the Phoenix Suns, and James and his associates will send out word that, hey, we’ll go to New York unless the Cavs deliver him his title. Well, they’ve reached the NBA Finals and had the best record in the NBA within the past three seasons, so they must have surrounded James with something that works there.

Nevertheless, James distanced himself in losing again, after a season in which he sold himself as all for one, and one for all. James had been an MVP until the very final moments of the basketball season, and then, he embarrassed himself and acted like a petulant kid. In a world where everyone in his life is too fearful or too dependent, LeBron James goes into the summer believing his own nonsense that he walked out of this season a winner.

As usual, there’s no one to tell him.

Except maybe now, Kobe’s puppet.