silvarios wrote: Yep. Not to defend Ray Rice, it was pretty abhorrent to strike a human being with enough force to knock them out cold, but why is it okay she hit him first? I wonder if he had called the police and filed a report if anything would have happened? Maybe he should have. It would have been better for both Mr and Mrs Rice than the awfulness of the elevator incident.
He easily outweighs and outmuscles her. His level of force is overwhelmingly more powerful than hers as he is a muscle filled pro athlete. Yes, he could have called police to report her hitting him but decided to used his football playing frame to knock her out. Not only was it wrong for him to do this, he had so much to lose.
silvarios wrote: How can the NFL suspend Rice two games and then suspend him more for the same incident? Seems self serving. The NFL should be ashamed and I hope the union appeals and wins the case as it will rub it in just how the NFL is run by a bunch of self serving jerks. The NFL desperately wanted the case to go away, suspended Rice two games (never mind dude in Cleveland is out for an entire year for partaking in recreational marijuana, oh the hypocrisy!!!), and now are look like a bunch of dopes for the initial penalty.
The NFL and Goodell can apply further punishment in this case because there is new information. The Commissioner and Ravens claim Mr. and Mrs. Rice mislead them about the severity of the incident. The Office of Commissioner has the powers to protect the business of the NFL, including suspending players to protect the backlash from advertisers and paying fans to boycott the NFL.
There is no marijuana hypocrisy here. Gordon is a 3rd time offender. His not being able to stay away from weed despite knowing the rules and breaking them twice before has no bearing on the Rice case. If Gordon didn't want to get suspended, he should not have partaken. Just because the NFL didn't give Rice enough punishment, doesn't get Gordon off the hook for his MULTIPLE bad choices. When the laws and rules change, he can toke all he wants, until then, it is either money/football or no money/football.
silvarios wrote: Which of course prompts the not so surprising overreaction.
I think the league instituted the penalty that they should have once they knew they could not let him get away with just 2 games.
silvarios wrote: Ravens also look pretty stupid right now, but the cynical side of me thinks if Rice had not been a washed up running back making major bank (hence the benefit of voiding his contract), they would have kept him around to come back after the suspension. Didn't they just post a blurb on the official team site about how Rice was a great guy?
]Oh, what a mess.
Yes, the Ravens and NFL are playing the poor us card. The question is, who knew about the video? Did they knowingly overlook it? If they thought it would never get out, they must be pretty dense. Everyone involved is looking really awful now.
The NFL is not a perfect business but they are good at making money. Maybe this incident and will make them realize they cannot hide from the glare of public opinion in the age of internet, social media, and 24 hour news. The new policy has some teeth, too bad it wasn't in place to begin with.
