Jan. 4, 2003. Lambeau Field — The Frozen Tundra. Upstart Atlanta at Titletown, where the Green Bay Packers had never before lost a playoff game.

Everything was going great … and then 22-year-old Mike Vick walked out of the tunnel into the cold, flurrying black night. His body language had a swagger about it — calm, collected, focused.

And that’s when I knew we were in trouble.

Vick danced around the field and the Green Bay defense like a young Randall Cunningham who just chugged two Red Bulls — he was impossible to tackle.

Final score: 27-7. So much for Green Bay’s all-time undefeated playoff record at home.

In 2003, Vick’s jersey was everywhere — I knew a kid with a red no. 7 jersey, a black no. 7 jersey and one of those throwback ones as well. Sure, he was kind of a douchebag, but at the time I was pretty jealous.

Vick, the No. 1 pick in the draft, was a phenom living up to the hype as the most popular player in America’s most popular sport.

Now, he’s finishing up a nearly two-year sentence for, of all things, dogfighting.

When the allegations started to pour in during the summer of 2007, we in the public were both stunned and baffled.

“This is Mike’s thing, and he knows it,” Vick’s mother told the Newport News Daily Press when charges were filed. Her words rang like a mother who felt as if prison was the only option for her troubled son.

In the end, all of it was true. Vick had electrocuted dogs and was a “heavyweight” in the underground dogfighting game. He was sentenced to 23 months in a federal prison.

Since then, Vick has become a real-life Paul Crewe (remember “The Longest Yard?” I know the remake sucked, but bare with me) — reportedly playing football in prison yards while working a 12-cent-a-day job as a janitor within security walls.

In July, Vick will be released from prison. He recently called himself “a changed man” and plans to apply for reinstatement to the NFL.

But, even if he is reinstated — and that is no gimme — fans will have to ask themselves,

“Do I want Michael Vick playing for my team?”

The answer, in most cases, will be no.

Yes, we live in a country of second chances, especially when it comes to professional athletes — just look at Stephon Marbury.

But Vick is a symbol of what makes sports often depressing to follow — you root like mad for these players, only to learn time and time again that many of them are complete assholes.

So please Green Bay, I’m begging you — do not offer the dogfighter a deal. I’d much prefer to lose without him than to win with him.