Fansided

Ruffled Feathers: How the Ravens mismanaged the Ray Rice situation

By Derek Montilla

Ray Rice leaves wearing a Terrible Towel. (Source: @LaMarrWoodley via Twitter.com)
Ray Rice leaves wearing a Terrible Towel. (Source: @LaMarrWoodley via Twitter.com) /
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Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens with his wife Janay addresses the media during a press conference at the Ravens training center on May 23, 2014 (Source: Rob Carr/Getty Images North America)
Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens with his wife Janay addresses the media during a press conference at the Ravens training center on May 23, 2014 (Source: Rob Carr/Getty Images North America) /

Let’s start off with the fact that the Ravens could have made the tough but fair call in suspending Rice themselves. They didn’t have to wait for the commissioner to do it or for charges to be pressed. They could have made the decision directly to suspend Rice 4-6 games and showed the World that being one of their top performers doesn’t supersede human decency.  But they didn’t.

Next is the awkward press conference in May, where Baltimore and their PR team bungled simply presenting information.  The strange vibe at the press conference manifested due to a very personal matter being made public. But it became even more uncomfortable when, for some unknown reason, the team took to Twitter from the press conference, live tweeting out such golden nuggets as:

"Ray Rice: “I won’t call myself a failure. Failure is not getting knocked down. It’s not getting up.” — Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 23, 2014 Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident. — Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 23, 2014"

Forget the fact that live tweeting direct quotes from a press conference like this is in bad taste.  They chose those statements to tweet. THOSE statements.  Not only does it sound like justification for his actions, but it sounds like they’re cracking jokes.

“Failure is not getting knocked down. It’s not getting up.” In Janay’s case, failure could have been getting up and saying something. We can all speculate on what the ramifications would have been if she would have said anything other than what she said. I’m not calling someone I don’t know a gold-digger, but it’s hard to approach the situation without sounding like that is what I am getting at. If we can be realistic about this though, losing a superstar pro athlete as a spouse over a single drunken fight is a factor to be considered here. There are plenty of people who stay with their spouses after a circumstance like this, and the majority of those don’t involve one of the parties being a millionaire. It is understandable for this couple to work out their differences over one incident, especially for Janay Rice. That part is between the couple and is truly none of our business.

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