Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, second from left, speaks with team president Dick Cass, left, owner Steve Bisciotti, second from right, and Kevin Byrne, senior vice president for public and community relations, after NFL football training camp at the team’s practice facility in Owings Mills, Md. In the wake of the Ray Rice domestic violence fallout, Bisciotti said he let fans down by not investigating the incident as aggressively as he should have, in part because he wanted to believe his former star running back hadn’t viciously punched his then-fiancee the way an explicit video showed he had.It’s an enduring fact of life in the NFL: If a player has talent, a team will find a place for him, no matter how bad his off-the-field profile might be.
Ray Rice is putting that maxim to the test, as much for the deed he did as the fact that it was documented in a stomach-turning video that will be available forever.
After suspending him indefinitely, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell left the door open for Rice’s return, telling CBS, “We would have to make sure that we are fully confident that he is addressing this issue. Clearly, he has paid a price for the actions that he has already taken.”
Second chances are nothing new in the NFL. The most notable recent case involved Michael Vick’s return after serving what amounted to a two-year suspension for running a dogfighting ring — a crime for which he served 18 months in prison.
There was no video evidence in the Vick case as visceral and direct as what’s available at the click of a button in Rice’s case.