2014 NFL Season

[Stefan Wood]

The Giants were awful last night.

[Scott Dolan]

OK, this explains some:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11493042/nfl-never-asked-casino-video-ray-rice-elevator-incident

The NFL has shown to be a strange place with regards to management/employee relations. They show amazing diligence on finding out every nugget of information on a player before they even come into the league; they also quietly fix situational problems when players get into trouble. That they chose to turn a blind eye on this is damning to them.

http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/what-is-the-process-to-get-an-subpoena-for-video-f-382811.html

The NFL's legal team knew that they'd come a little too close to a tampering with state's evidence charge were they to directly request the video from the casino. Since there was on ongoing legal investigation going on at the time, that video was indeed state's evidence, and the NFL had absolutely nothing to do with the legal investigation, nor the charges that were eventually filed. They wouldn't have even been recognized by the court unless Rice's attorney or the prosecutor called them in as a witness. In which case they still would have had no right to review any evidence pertaining to that case.

This is a situation where breathless and world renown legal experts like Adam Schefter should really shut the fuck up, because not only do they have no idea what they're talking about but are confusing the hell out of everyone else with their moronic pronouncements.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Scott Dolan

[T.D.]

IMO, a lot of this sudden disgust after leaking of the tape is PR spin-doctoring BS.

As the Associated Press's story yesterday points out, it's basically always been known that Rice KO'd Palmer:

...The action [baltimore's termination of Rice's contract] represented a complete reversal for the team, even though an Atlantic City police summons stated that Rice caused ''bodily injury to Janay Palmer, specifically by striking her with his hand, rendering her unconscious.''...

Meanwhile, is anyone surprised by the fact that Rice was sponsored by Nike?

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24702700/report-nike-terminates-endorsement-deal-with-ray-rice

Edited September 9, 2014 by T.D.

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, the press coverage from yesterday was almost as shameless as the leagues behavior. Really sickening.

Yes, we all knew Rice knocked his wife out. How they were able to manufacture the outrage they did yesterday is mind boggling.

[Stefan Wood]

Espn, etc manufactured the outrage. NFL and the Ravens made fumbling attempts to cover their behinds, exacerbating it even more. And the Ravens press conference was strange. They knew the issue was going to be addressed, yet they let their head coach go out on the front line and deal with it instead of the GM.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Stefan Wood

[Scott Dolan]

Espn, etc manufactured the outrage. NFL and the Ravens made fumbling attempts to cover their behinds, exacerbating it even more.

So do we afford you the rank of Captain Obvious, or General Observation, for this?

Thanks to Roger Goodell, this is what the NFL has been reduced to.

Pretty sickening shit. I'm assuming we can at least agree upon that.

[Stefan Wood]

Yes, I am Captain Obvious. And you are General Instigator, as well as The Man Who Has to Have the Last Word. Always. Can't help yourself.

[Scott Dolan]

*blush*

But you have to admit, my last word usually kicks ass!

[T.D.]

The Associated Press is knocking the cover off the ball concerning the Rice story:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ap-newsbreak-source-says-rice-210004857--nfl.html

Making a lot of prominent sports "reporters" look like dopey shills (shocking...).

Edited September 10, 2014 by T.D.

[Scott Dolan]

There's one law enforcement officer that is soon to be out of a job.

[Stefan Wood]

The law enforcement official, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, says he had no further communication with any NFL employee and can't confirm anyone watched the video. The person said they were unauthorized to release the video but shared it unsolicited, because they wanted the NFL to have it before deciding on Rice's punishment.

Yup, he's in trouble. And what about this NFL executive? Should this person be in trouble as well, for not informing the commissioner? At the very least the executive has contradicted Goodell's assertion that no one in the league has seen the video.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Stefan Wood

[Larry Kart]

Yeah, the press coverage from yesterday was almost as shameless as the leagues behavior. Really sickening.

Yes, we all knew Rice knocked his wife out. How they were able to manufacture the outrage they did yesterday is mind boggling.

I'm not so sure. I knew that he hit her and knocked her unconscious, as we all did, but actually seeing it was something else. The blow itself, but also his reaction or lack of reaction to what he had done. He just stands there for a while, seemingly indifferent or pondering what he's going to do with her limp form, when some people might have thought that the blow had caused grave injury or even killed her.

[JSngry]

Jerry Jones: NFL made right call on Ray Rice; spousal abuse is ‘intolerable’ and will be ‘adjudicated accordingly’

http://cowboysblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/jerry-jones-nfl-made-right-call-on-ray-rice-says-spousal-abuse-is-intolerable-and-it-will-be-adjudicated-accordingly.html/

Lawsuit accuses Cowboys owner Jerry Jones of sexual assault in 2009 hotel incident

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20140909-lawsuit-accuses-cowboys-owner-jerry-jones-of-sexual-assault-in-2009-hotel-incident.ece

Jana Weckerly, 27, a former exotic dancer from Ardmore, Okla., said Jones, 71, fondled her genitals, forced her to touch or rub his penis, and made her watch as he received oral sex from another woman. Weckerly seeks over $1 million in punitive damages...

Levi McCathern II, an attorney for Jones, said the court sealed the case late Tuesday. “These allegations are completely false,” he wrote in a prepared statement. “The legal complaint is unsupported by facts or evidence of any kind. This is nothing more than an attempt to embarrass and extort Jerry Jones. This is a money grab by a lawyer who is a solo practitioner just trying to make a name for himself. The alleged incidents would have been more than 5 years old...

The alleged details of the encounter between Jones and three women were first disclosed last month in a rambling manifesto by a man named Frank Hoover of Wichita, Kan. He included three photos of the Cowboys owner and two women in sexually suggestive poses. Weckerly did not appear in the photos. She reportedly took them with her cellphone.

Hoover, who has said that he is the son of God, claimed that Jones later paid Weckerly and others several hundred thousand dollars to keep quiet...

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, the press coverage from yesterday was almost as shameless as the leagues behavior. Really sickening.

Yes, we all knew Rice knocked his wife out. How they were able to manufacture the outrage they did yesterday is mind boggling.

I'm not so sure. I knew that he hit her and knocked her unconscious, as we all did, but actually seeing it was something else. The blow itself, but also his reaction or lack of reaction to what he had done. He just stands there for a while, seemingly indifferent or pondering what he's going to do with her limp form, when some people might have thought that the blow had caused grave injury or even killed her.

Larry, he dragged her out of the elevator. He didn't pick her up and carry her out, he dragged her. He showed complete disregard for her in that original lobby video.

I have absolutely no idea how anyone could have seen that differently.

It's like Dan Patrick said on his show the other day: "Can you politely knock someone out?"

[GA Russell]

I haven't seen the video, and I haven't really been following the story.

Can someone explain to me why so many sportswriters are critical of Goodell regarding this Rice issue?

What do they think he did wrong, and what do they think he should have done?

[TedR]

In today's paper, the quote from Goodell is "We assumed that there was a video. We asked for a video. But we were never granted that opportunity". But "a law enforcement official says he sent a video of Ray Rice punching his then fiancé to an NFL executive five months ago while league officials have insisted they didn't see the violent images until this week." The article goes on to say "Also a voicemail from an NFL office number confirmed they received the video."

Edited September 11, 2014 by TedR

[T.D.]

I haven't seen the video, and I haven't really been following the story.

Can someone explain to me why so many sportswriters are critical of Goodell regarding this Rice issue?

What do they think he did wrong, and what do they think he should have done?

Goodell is accused of having been too lenient. He originally suspended Rice for two games as penalty for knocking his (then) fiancee unconscious (in February), at the same time he was suspending players four games for recreational drug abuse (pot, MDMA). There was never, from day one, any dispute about Rice KOing the woman. All hell has broken loose (and Rice released / indefinitely suspended) after the release of the videotape, and all sorts of coverup/conspiracy theories have been concocted.

"What should Goodell have done?" Consensus seems to be that the original suspension should have been longer and that the NFL should have investigated more fully.

[GA Russell]

Thanks TD!

[Larry Kart]

Yeah, the press coverage from yesterday was almost as shameless as the leagues behavior. Really sickening.

Yes, we all knew Rice knocked his wife out. How they were able to manufacture the outrage they did yesterday is mind boggling.

I'm not so sure. I knew that he hit her and knocked her unconscious, as we all did, but actually seeing it was something else. The blow itself, but also his reaction or lack of reaction to what he had done. He just stands there for a while, seemingly indifferent or pondering what he's going to do with her limp form, when some people might have thought that the blow had caused grave injury or even killed her.

Larry, he dragged her out of the elevator. He didn't pick her up and carry her out, he dragged her. He showed complete disregard for her in that original lobby video.

I have absolutely no idea how anyone could have seen that differently.

It's like Dan Patrick said on his show the other day: "Can you politely knock someone out?"

Yes, but IMO what we see him do and not do in the elevator after he knocked her out adds a good deal to his eventual complete disregard for her in the lobby. Again, he doesn't (as far as I can tell) even check to see if she's still breathing. Further, though we can't see it in this video, law enforcement officials who have seen an enhanced version say that Rice spits on her unconscious body before he drags her out of the elevator.

[Larry Kart]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/09/11/whether-nfl-had-tape-obscures-question-of-whether-nfl-needed-it/

More reason why the inside-the-elevator video might be significant:

The question of whether the NFL had the Ray Rice tape obscures the more important question of whether the NFL actually needed to see the tape. If Ray Rice told the team and the league exactly what happened in the elevator, there really wasn’t any need to see the tape.

In the only two interviews given in the aftermath of the release of the Rice video, Commissioner Roger Goodell stopped short of saying Rice lied about what happened, pointing vaguely to an ambiguity with Norah O’Donnell of CBS and an inconsistency with Christine Brennan of USA Today.

When the hammer dropped on Rice three days ago, many assumed that the team and the league had concluded that Rice had lied about what he did, and that the new punishment arose not from the incident for which he’d already been punished, but from the fact that he essentially obstructed justice in connection with the league’s investigation. After all, Mike Vick and the Saints learned the hard way that Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness To The Shield.

While the football-following world was reeling from the report that the NFL actually had the Rice tape as early as April, a bombshell emerged from Ravens G.M. Ozzie Newsome: Ray Rice didn’t lie.

Ray Rice didn’t lie. Which means the story Rice told was consistent with and not ambiguous in relation to what the video showed. Which means that, regardless of whether the tape was or wasn’t sent to the league office and whether it did or didn’t snake its way to the guy at the top of the organizational chart, the NFL knew what Rice had done.

But the issue remains unclear, because team president Dick Cass suggested that someone told the team and the league something other than what the tape shows.

“There’s a big difference between reading a report that says he knocked her unconscious or being told that someone had slapped someone and that she had hit her head,” Cass told the Baltimore Sun. “That is one version of the facts. That’s what we understood to be the case. When you see the video, it just looks very different than what we understood the facts to be.”

So did Ray Rice lie, or didn’t he? Did Rice create ambiguities and inconsistencies, or didn’t he? Newsome, who per multiple sources was in the room when Rice met with Goodell, says Rice didn’t lie.

But Cass was in the room, too. And Cass is sticking with the notion that he was told Rice had merely slapped Janay, and that she then hit her head.

Etc.

[Scott Dolan]

Um, so?!

Are we going to get into varying degrees of domestic violence where someone is knocked unconscious and then dragged by her feet?

C'mon...

[Larry Kart]

Um, so?!

Are we going to get into varying degrees of domestic violence where someone is knocked unconscious and then dragged by her feet?

C'mon...

Not sure what you're saying "Um, so?" to. I thought the question was whether the in-the-elevator video added something pertinent to what we knew before. I explained why I think it does -- because it shows not only the actual violent act but also Rice's apparent indifference afterwards to Janay's well-being, this when it was still just the two of them in the elevator, with no need as yet to tell anyone a story about what caused her unconsciousness.

Then, as post #45 states, there also is a dispute/disagreement between two Ravens officials, GM Ozzie Newsome and team president Dick Cass, as to what the NFL report said that Rice did -- Newsome stating that the NFL report said that Rice did to Janay what the tape shows he did, Cass stating that the NFL report did not say that Rice did to Janay was what the tape shows he did, that the report instead said that Rice slapped Janay and that she then fell and hit her head. Not that the latter act of domestic violence wouldn't be reprehensible, but one would think that there might be some difference between a slap from Ray Rice and a full-bore punch from him. And if indeed Cass is right about the difference between what the report says and what the tape shows, that means that either Rice lied about what happened in the elevator or that he told the truth and the NFL report for some reason covered that up.

[Stefan Wood]

Rice's indifference doesn't add to the scene. He knocked her cold. He may have not have been indifferent - but stunned that he had struck her. We don't know. The fact that we see it shouldn't produce this manic outrage.

Apparently the NFL did have the video back in April, independent of the police, through murky means, but this has yet to be substantiated.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Stefan Wood

[Scott Dolan]

Not murky, illegal. Which really makes it hard to believe. Because if that is true, then it's crossed over into conspiracy territory.

The rest of your post is 100% spot on. The video from the elevator added no weight to what we already knew. She was knocked out cold in the elevator, then dragged out into the lobby and left lying on the floor while Rice simply stood around contemplating his next move, with absolutely no regard to the condition of his girlfriend.

I didn't need to see his technique to explain what was already painfully apparent.

And as far as the supposed "lie" Rice told the NFL? So slapping her and having her hit her head is somehow less violent?! I don't get that one bit. He violently attacked her causing her to lose consciousness. I really don't care whether it was an open hand or a closed fist. Both are equally dangerous coming from a strong professional athlete.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Scott Dolan

[Larry Kart]

Rice's indifference doesn't add to the scene. He knocked her cold. He may have not have been indifferent - but stunned that he had struck her. We don't know. The fact that we see it shouldn't produce this manic outrage.

Rice's apparent indifference does add something to me. And while I hope you don't have me in particular in mind, don't think that my position is one of manic outrage.