The big question in sports today is whether or not commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL had access to the video of Ray Rice punching his then-fiance in the face when it suspended him for two games due to the domestic violence dispute back in July.
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When the video surfaced on Monday and Rice was released by the Baltimore Ravens and suspended indefinitely by the NFL, the league released a statement saying it did not have access to the clip.
However, soon thereafter, TMZ Sports reported that the NFL could have seen the video if they wanted to but turned a blind eye.
They wrote:
"The NFL NEVER contacted the casino to request video of Ray Rice brutalizing his fiancee … TMZ Sports has learned. Commissioner Rodger Goodell made his disciplinary decision in the dark, which raises the question … Is that the way he wanted it?(…)Sources who worked at the casino at the time of the incident tell us … if the NFL had asked for the video, they would have gladly complied. Former employees have told us someone with an affiliation to the NFL saw the video, but we are now certain that someone was not from Goodell’s office or the core NFL executives."
But Goodell, speaking about the incident on Tuesday in an interview with CBS, disputed that report.
From Pro Football Talk:
"“We had not seen any videotape of what occurred in the elevator. We assumed that there was a video, we asked for video, we asked for anything that was pertinent, but we were never granted that opportunity,” Goodell said."
Surely, many will assume Goodell is simply lying here in an effort to take the heat away from him and the league. TMZ, who were the original publishers of the Rice video, have given us no reason to this point not to believe their reporting.
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