When sports transcend the games being played, normally the stories showcase humanitarian deeds and address greater political causes.
Courtesy: CBS Local Baltimore
The ongoing saga with Ray Rice and his domestic violence incident with his wife Janay is not one of those cases and will likely not die for awhile. NFL teams have to deal with these kinds of damage control situations every now and then and they aren’t as uncommon as it may seem.
Remember when the New Orleans Saints had a bounty system where their coaching staff, including head coach Sean Payton, organized a ring of players to hurt opposing quarterbacks for cash under the table? Bad press surrounded the Saints all throughout the 2012 season when the NFL finally had evidence that then defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was the ring leader. He was banished from the game, but returned and the other players and staff members involved were punished. No amount of damage control could pacify how the situation escalated.
Think about Michael Vick and his dog fighting scandal. The Falcons not only had to deal with the penalty that the NFL was going to lay down, but also the legal system. He served 21 months of prison time, was out of football during that time, and made a career resurrection with a stigma likely forever attached to his name with the Eagles in Week Three of the 2009 season.
The Baltimore Ravens have themselves a damage control situation like the two above, but this incident hits home to people even outside of sports.
Domestic violence is a human issue. It happens everywhere. It happens all the time. It’s a crime. It is heinous. And after seeing the video of the former Ravens running back it is clearly hard to watch. The sad part is that this happens all the time… in the NFL and usually gets pushed under the rug.
Not long after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell admitted he initially screwed up on Rice’s two-game suspension and reconstructing his league’s domestic violence policy, San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Ray MacDonald was arrested for felony domestic violence charges after he allegedly hit his pregnant fiancee on August 31. MacDonald’s coach Jim Harbaugh had this to say:
“If someone physically abuses a woman and/or physically or mentally abuses or hurts a child, then there’s no understanding,” Harbaugh said. “There’s no tolerance for that. ” He later said that there would be “no way” a player who commits such an act would be allowed on his team.
MacDonald played in Week One.
Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers was one of the top pass-rushing threats in all of football last year with 15.0 sacks. He was arrested in May on assault charges and also for sending death threats to his former girlfriend. Hardy played in Week One and will not face trial until Nov. 17 as he appealed a district judge’s decision in July and was granted a jury trial for that date.
If the NFL wants to crack down on this issue, why did it take TMZ Sports’ video that was released early in the four o’clock hour Monday morning?
Video evidence magnifies the impact and the way people perceived domestic violence. We know it goes on, but now we know what it looks like – if we didn’t already have a picture painted in our minds.
Courtesy: CBSSports.com
And Rice is being punished while the other players are playing.
That’s how it has to be though. It is just. Rice is the guinea pig in this process and the quick decisions to terminate his contract in Baltimore and then commissioner Goodell to subsequently suspend him indefinitely from the NFL were the best solutions in the short-term. However, all of the parties involved here are wrong on some levels.
The hierarchy of blame – if you want to play that game – begins with Rice. He doesn’t hit his wife – then- fiancée – none of this escalates into what could be the end of his NFL career. But it’s his fault. He took responsibility for his actions and has to pay some kind of price. Taking away the game he loves is just enough of a prison sentence for an athlete when jail time evades them.
Next, look to the legal system of the state of New Jersey. The fact that Rice left the courtroom with a plea agreement and no jail time with this video being readily available as evidence is absurd. The NFL and the Ravens had to act and react based on the legal system first and according to the courts, this incident wasn’t that bad. This video proves otherwise.
Then, the NFL. TMZ Sports released another report this morning saying that the NFL and commissioner Goodell never asked for the video from the casino after seeing the initial report in February. The league made a decision in the dark, instead of investigating and digging deeper into the situation in trying to figure out why Janay Parker was found limp outside of an elevator with her fiancée dragging her like a ragdoll.
The Ravens are up next in the way that they presented Rice. If this video was out there, they had to do some digging themselves and mentally prepare for the 2014 season as if Rice wouldn’t be around. Since the legal system and league made the initial errors, head coach John Harbaugh and the rest of the Ravens rolled with everything that was presented. Baltimore prepared as if they’d have Rice back regardless of what anyone thought of the situation. Football is a business and they are here to win football games. Going out to the media and saying Ray is a great guy before the elevator video was released is what makes the organization look bad and they will have to work on repairing their image and leadership throughout the entire season. It just so happens on the football field, the Ravens had a fairly lackluster performance and need all of the help they can get.
Finally, you have to look to Janay. It isn’t her fault she was hit, but if she went to the authorities and told the truth from the beginning, Rice would have received a much harsher penalty a lot sooner. She married him. They have a two-year-old daughter together named Rayven.
And she thinks the media is ruining her life:
Courtesy: Courtney Pomeroy – WNEW
There are still many unanswered questions left in the saga as it is only just beginning. In a football sense, the Ravens don’t have Ed Reed or Ray Lewis walking in the locker room doors to calm the storm that has erupted in Owings Mills. In looking at this incident, just read this AP story and be your own judge as to where this could go. In looking at commissioner Goodell, he may be lucky to have a job after a lackluster investigation. What do officials usually say after they watch an instant replay? “After further review…” this whole situation appears to be a never-ending quagmire in the making.
