NFL fiasco

[gunnarthor]

http://deadspin.com/the-nfl-finally-explains-why-it-suspended-ray-rice-inde-1634008557

 

This is odd.  I think we can all agree that Ray Rice's actions were beyond horrible, that domestic violence is a real problem that shouldn't be made light of and the NFL's first suspension of him was tone deaf and appalling. 

 

But the NFL still has to follow rules when it suspends someone and had to come up with a reason to change Rice's suspension from 2 games to "indefinitely."  I assumed they'd do it based on his actions in the elevator but that doesn't seem to be the basis.  From the article, "It appears that the NFL's official stance for changing its Rice punishment (and completely ignoring its "new" domestic violence policy) is that Rice lied to Roger Goodell and other league bigwigs in his description of what happened in that elevator."  So the longer suspension isn't based on the DV but rather for the video showing "starkly different" version of events than what Rice told the NFL.  Essentially, the NFL is saying Rice lied about what happened in the elevator when he talked to them, although all accounts seem to indicate that Rice had been forthcoming about that.  

 

As the article says, "Thus, the NFL is retroactively claiming that the reason it came down with a universally-derided two-game suspension in the first place is that it ignored hard evidence in favor of a first-person account given by the person accused of committing domestic violence. This is the league's actual excuse!"

 

So now the NFLPA could file a strong appeal on his behalf (and here the MLBPA and NFLPA are pretty much complete opposites in terms of ability to stick up and fight for their members).  From the article - "The NFLPA, which as far as we can tell is run by a guy who is actually Roger Goodell in a wig, has three days to file an appeal. Rice appears to already be laying the groundwork for that appeal, with "four sources close to Rice" telling ESPN that he "told the full truth to Goodell." Earlier this week, by the way, Ravens executives said Rice's description of the incident to them was exactly what the video showed."

 

Roger Goodell makes 44 million a year.

[biggentleben]

In my sports marketing class in college, we discussed the end of Fay Vincent's time as commissioner in my sports marketing class about how many people have very little to no consideration of the PR machine when making decisions.  Vincent was universally disliked by the time he was forced to resign because he often made decisions without concern about how they would sit in the public eye, including the Steve Howe suspension and realignment that were the final straws in his tenure as commissioner.  Goodell has done similar things recently, and he's already got rumblings from owners.  Now the noise is very loud.