In a world where athletes are revered and rewarded with multi-million dollar contracts, it sometimes seems as if they could get away with murder. But in the case of former Baltimore Ravens Running Back Ray Rice, he almost got away with almost murder.
In Feb. 2014, TMZ released a video of Rice dragging his unconscious fiancée Janay Palmer, now Rice, out of the elevator of an Atlantic City, New Jersey casino. After admitting he had been the one who hit her, he was charged with third-degree aggravated assault – which was dropped due to the pretrial intervention program he was permitted to participate in – and the National Football League issued a two-game suspension.
Although knocking your loved ones unconscious while enjoying a casino vacation is generally frowned upon by society, Rice’s teammates and coach defended him as he publicly apologized. The Ravens’ official Twitter account even live-tweeted during the press conference that “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident,” although the tweet was later deleted. Rice went virtually unpunished by the Ravens, the NFL and assumedly the woman he beat, seeing that the couple was married in June 2014.
Now, on Monday, TMZ released the prequel to the already condemning elevator-dragging footage. This video shows what happened inside the elevator, and the picture isn’t pretty. Footage depicts Rice violently punching his fiancée, whose head hits the elevator wall as she is knocked completely unconscious. In response, the Ravens terminated Rice’s $35 million contract, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.
While many domestic violence advocates are applauding the strong statement the NFL is making in suspending Rice, it’s not as if the public wasn’t already aware he committed the act. The only difference now is that people can watch him doing it. Still, the NFL is justifying their delay of appropriate punishment through claims that they hadn’t been able to access the entire video until now.
“We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator,” said NFL senior vice president of communications Greg Aiello. “That video was not made available to us, and no one in our office has seen it until today.”
Aiello’s statement seems a little fishy, seeing that the footage was taken from a security camera, surely something law enforcement would be able to access –especially if TMZ was able to get a hold of it. Furthermore, why did they have to see the act to fully believe it? It’s not as if Rice denied it. The problem lies inherently in the NFL’s failure to punish him appropriately, considering their initial punishment for the domestic abuse incident was a two-game suspension. Keep in mind the NFL suspends players who test positive for marijuana for four games initially, and in the case of Cleveland Browns Receiver Josh Gordon, an entire season if caught again. Seems a wee bit disproportioned, no?
And we all know that suspending Rice won’t get rid of him forever. Few people believed Michael Vick would see a football field again after the NFL suspended him for funding dog-fighting operations, yet Vick is now a Quarterback for the New York Jets. Animal abuse is pretty shameful but not shameful enough for NFL teams to shut out a talented football player who would surely bring big bucks to whatever team he played for. Who knows how soon we might see Rice back on the 40-yard line?
In the end, the NFL is running a business. One of the most fundamental functions of a business is to make money, and for the NFL, talented players are the products on sale. To protect their products, many of whom engage in sexual assault, driving under the influence and domestic violence, the NFL avoids addressing these situations until they absolutely have to. Considering how little information the NFL provides when incidents such as Rice’s surface, we can only guess what kind of scandals never even made it outside of the locker room.
The NFL’s business-like attitude has an effect on its players too. These players must know how much they can get away with, and that probably makes them feel invincible, and this attitude exists long before they enter the big leagues. This is the American football culture that changes small-town athletes to virtual gods on earth, and it needs to be reformed.
Rice may have gotten his just desserts – for now – but it’s doubtful his suspension has really moved any mountains in the NFL’s standards for its players. Until the athletic world stops making exceptions for its players, it’s only a matter of time until the next scandal breaks.
