Ray Rice has been given a two-game suspension following domestic-assault charges laid earlier this year. He’ll miss the opening games against the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers. He’ll lose nearly half a million dollars in income and he’ll pay a $58,000 fine. It may sound like a lot of money, except that Rice has a five-year, $35-million contract with the Baltimore Ravens.
Rice could probably scrape together the funds the way most of us dig for toonies waiting in line at the Tim Hortons drive-through. As for the two-game suspension, it doesn’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist.
Video evidence shows Rice pulling an unconscious Janay Palmer (his then fiancée, now wife) out of an elevator in an Atlantic City casino after allegedly knocking her out. Initially, police called it a “mutual attack.”
But then Rice was arrested on Feb. 15, indicted by a grand jury on March 27, and subsequently charged with third-degree aggravated assault. On May 1, he pleaded not guilty and, to avoid jail time, agreed to participate in a pretrial intervention program.
At a press conference in late May, he used a cringeworthy sports analogy to express his regret, stating, “Failure is not getting knocked down—it’s not getting back up.”
He proceeded to apologize to pretty much everyone in the world except his wife, while Palmer, using phrases practically copied out of the battered-woman-syndrome textbook, apologized for “the role that she played in the incident that night.”
Turning a blind eye to domestic violence isn’t necessarily practised across all professional sports leagues. Chuck Knoblauch, a former second baseman and outfielder set to be inducted into the Minnesota Twins’ Hall of Fame in August, was arrested Wednesday after allegedly attacking his wife. Thursday the Twins released a statement reading “in light of recent reports surrounding Chuck Knoblauch…the Minnesota Twins have decided to cancel the team’s 2014 Hall of Fame induction ceremony.”
So the Twins get it. But what is the NFL thinking?
Last season, 10 players were handed four-game suspensions for substance abuse, including Robert Mathis (who took an infertility drug). Richie Incognito served eight games for verbally harassing a teammate.
This off-season Josh Gordon was suspended a whole year for marijuana use. Meanwhile, Colts owner Jim Irsay, who was arrested for DUI and possession of a controlled substance in March, has yet to face any disciplinary action from the League.
Seriously, two games?
The message is clear: So long as you win games and make the NFL money, what you do on your own time is pretty much your own business, regardless if it breaks the law or puts other people in danger. Just don’t get caught. Or, more importantly, don’t get caught more than once (because as a repeat offender, a player could be looking at four to 16 games).
Seriously.
The lack of accountability is astounding and the players are well versed in the language of excuses and feigned remorse. As a result, it should come as no surprise that 20 NFL players were arrested during the off-season. Five of them play for Baltimore.
Those who support Rice and the NFL’s decision offer up the prerequisite banalities about how we all make mistakes and everyone deserves a second chance. For most of us, however, all it takes is one major screw-up to derail everything. Knocking one’s wife unconscious certainly qualifies as a train wreck, and actual consequences should ensue.
But, as Rice explained in his press conference, “No relationship is perfect.”
This is especially true when it comes to the relationship between crime and punishment according to the NFL.