Cost for Baltimore Ravens to release Ray Rice

Early Monday morning, TMZ released video of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice striking his then fiancee — twice — and knockout her unconscious.

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Needless to say, the video is very trouble.

If you want to see it, you can check it out here, but be warned: it is not pretty.

People were already upset with the NFL for choosing to only suspend Rice for two games, and now those complaints will grow louder with the graphic evidence from the video.

So what can the Ravens do now?

Unfortunately, the team cannot suspend Ray Rice. Since the NFL already handed down a two-game suspension, the Ravens are unable to suspend Rice on their own. They could, however, make him inactive when he returns to the team.

The Ravens could also release Ray Rice, but financially it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

Here is a breakdown of the cost for the Ravens to release Rice, via RussellStreetReport.com:

"However, a post-June 1 release will cause dead money – a lot of it – to hit in 2015. With a post-June 1 release, the Ravens only have to count this year’s bonus proration of $4.75M against the Cap in 2014, but the remaining $9.5M would then hit against the 2015 Cap."

That would be a lot of dead money counting against the team’s salary cap.

It will be interesting to see what happens next now that the video is out there, but one thing is for certain: fans will no longer to defend Rice for his despicable and cowardly actions.