WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO
Living in Baltimore, NOT as a Ravens fan, can be rough; watching a team consistently get things right on the field, winning two Super Bowls and having to listen to a passionate fan base rub it in my face. They are a model of consistency, with how they treat their players and producing a winning product. But what happened with the Ray Rice incident proves the organization has a LOW CLASS outlook on character.
Character that has come into question all too many times in the past for the Baltimore Ravens. An organization that just erected a statue of its greatest player, but also a player that helped cover up a murder earlier in his career. Not to mention the litany of other criminals the front office defended because they liked they way they played on the field.
Yet the Baltimore Ravens have been highly respected as one of the few teams “that get it right” because of how they handle adversity on the field. But this off season has proven how clueless they really are. The amount of support laid out for Ray Rice is a simply an embarrassment beyond belief. This is the type of stuff professors will teach NOT to do in Public Relations 101 for years to come.
VP Kevin Byrne released an article on the team’s official website, after the video of Rice’s dragging then lifeless fiancee out of an elevator was released, simply titled “I Like Ray Rice.” Head coach John Harbaugh consistently reiterated that Rice is a “good guy” and GM Ozzie Newsome insisted on standing by his former Pro Bowl running back. The team’s own twitter handle even had the balls to tweet out Rice’s now wife, Janay ,was sorry for her involvement in the incident! Oh by the way, no one in the Baltimore Ravens organization (except Rice himself with a slip of the tongue in his training camp press conference) has EVER mentioned the words “domestic violence” when referring to this incident.
Seriously, they have never used that phrase to describe a man knocking a woman unconscious!
The organization fed their own fan base (and the rest of the NFL world) such garbage, to lead on their die-hards to actually believe what they were spewing. It was so irresponsible that fans were finding any way to defend Rice; “We don’t know what happened in that elevator” or “She provoked him” or “She was drunk and passed out” (I’ve heard them all personally). The organization betrayed its fan base’s trust to believing “Ray Rice is a good guy” to the point they decided to give him a standing ovation on two different occasions. I’m sure all my friends that joined in on that cheer of approval feel not only ashamed, but also deceived by the organization they stand by financially and emotionally.
Ray Rice is not a “good guy;” he is a coward, criminal and general scum. The NFL let him off easy, the organization let him off easy, but my guess is the people that really matter, the fans, will not. Hopefully everyone can learn a lesson from this and the culture of domestic violence will change in the future. But for now Rice is set to be activated to play football for millions of dollars on Friday…
SIDE NOTE: For those looking for more information on domestic violence or need help head to http://mnadv.org/.
