The Ray Rice situation only continues to get uglier for the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens.
A report released Friday evening by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” claims Ravens executives knew the gruesome details of the second Rice video just hours after the incident occurred in February, then worked quickly to guarantee a lenient punishment for their star.
OTL spoke to 20 sources, including team officials, current and former league officials and those close to Rice, to unearth what they believe is a “pattern of misinformation and misdirection employed by the Ravens and the NFL since that February night.”
The full report, which is well worth the read can be found here, but see some of the main findings below.
- Hours after Rice punched his now-wife in the elevator, an Atlantic City police officer, while watching surveillance video from inside the elevator, detailed what happened to the Baltimore Ravens’ director of security, Darren Sanders. Sanders “quickly relayed” the sequence of events to team executives.
- Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, who has publicly supported Rice, wanted him released immediately after seeing the initial video of him dragging his then-fiancée out of the elevator, according to four sources. But owner Steve Bisciotti, team president Dick Cass and GM Ozzie Newsome overruled Harbaugh.
- Following the incident, Biscotti, Cass and Newsome went to great lengths to guarantee leniency for Rice, embarking on “extensive public and private campaigns.”
- Four sources said Ravens executives pushed for just a two-game suspension, which is what commissioner Roger Goodell handed down on July 24. The light punishment was a “favor” from Goodell to his “good friend Bisciotti.”
- Days after Goodell announced the punishment, he divulged to a friend that he wasn’t sure he did the right thing, and it gave the impression he “regretted that someone had talked him out of leveling a tougher penalty against Ray Rice.”
- After releasing Rice on Sept. 8, Bisciotti sent Rice a series of sympathetic text messages, including one that said the Ravens would have a job for him when he was done playing football.
The Ravens responded to the report late Friday night, claiming the report contained “numerous errors.”
“The ESPN.com ‘Outside the Lines’ article contains numerous errors, inaccuracies, false assumptions and, perhaps, misunderstandings,” the statement read. “The Ravens will address all of these next week in Baltimore after our trip to Cleveland for Sunday’s game against the Browns.”
