Once the initial shock of seeing Ray Rice punch his wife in the face passes, thoughts and accusations turn to the NFL, Roger Goodell and the Baltimore Ravens for the way they handled the situation, as their decision to cut him loose doesn’t repair the damage already done, or hide the hints suggesting there was a major cover up in this incident.
An interesting thing that John Harbaugh said in the aftermath of Ray Rice being released and his suspension from the league shows just how wrong all of the process in this incident has been. This is what the Raven’s head coach had to say after seeing the video: It changed things of course. It made things a little bit different.
So the logic stemming from this? The league and the franchise saw the video of Ray Rice dragging his wife-to-be unconscious out of the elevator, and couldn’t put two and two together? How exactly did she get in that situation?
Having the private interview with Roger Goodell while Ray Rice was in the room, as if Goodell is some sort of law overlord, reeks of trying to cover things up. It’s hard to believe TMZ were able to get their hands on the video from the events inside the elevator, while the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens couldn’t.
Torrey Smith, one of Rice’s closest friends on the team, said something that made some sense. While everyone knew how she was knocked out, seeing it on camera suddenly makes you feel completely different about the incident.
As bad it is, I still got to stick there for him as a person, not his actions at all. We’re all disappointed by that. It was probably a little more than what we expected. It was tough what he did. You can’t say the punishment doesn’t fit the bill.
It feels like this isn’t over. Something just doesn’t feel right about how the whole thing went down, including the team and the NHL setting the press conference during Monday Night Football so they won’t get full attention. Everything about this incident feels like the league knew a lot more than it’s letting on, including seeing that video despite saying they’ve never had a chance to view before it was uploaded on TMZ.