Top 10 Reasons NFL Waited Months Before Dealing With Race Rice Domestic Abuse

ten reasons nfl waited on ray rice domestic abuse case 2015

ten reasons nfl waited on ray rice domestic abuse case 2015

It is 2014 and maybe the most powerful weapon in the world is the video camera. Video gives us all the ability to see everything personally. It is the closest we can get to being in an event up close. The video of Ray Rice knocking his girlfriend out cold and dragging her from the elevator cost him his job as an NFL player for now. But why did it take the NFL and the Ravens months to really take action on the guy? Here’s ten reasons to think about.

 

  1. The NFL needed a carefully outlined policy on domestic abuse. They are now having to play catchup. The video forced them to act. A good policy would have made action happen more swiftly.
  1. Ray Rice did not tell them the entire truth about the actual events in the elevator. They shouldn’t have taken his word obviously.
  1. The league had to consider the player involved so they would not hurt a teams’ chances at winning games. They didn’t want to punish the team by leaving them without a superstar running back. They would never admit this but it was a consideration for them.
  1. A picture is worth a thousand words and the video forced the league to take action.
  1. The NFL leadership was out of touch on domestic abuse. They had no idea the significance of this incident until public outcry went through the roof after the video release.
  1. Having a single man in charge of player discipline, Goodell, is a mistake. That is too large a role for one guy.
  1. The NFL is so anxious to keep growing that they have let the players get out of hand. It is bad for growth when your league looks like it is full of abusive barbarians.
  1. Roger Goodell is an arrogant man who thought he had a handle on the league. Clearly he was wrong.
  1. The NFL had to appear to be its own sheriff even if it was months late. If they had done nothing more to Ray Rice, they would have had politicians getting involved to get headlines for themselves, talking about congressional meetings possibly.
  1. Video and the viral effect of it was a snowball rolling downhill for the NFL. Once the video was made public, it became a media storm of epic proportions. The NFL had no choice but to rid themselves of the player that was involved or the league would have looked even worse than it does currently.