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A growing chorus of sports analysts, players and owners is asking if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will be held accountable for his mishandling of the domestic violence case against now-former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice.
“Was a colossal mistake made or was there a cover-up?” asked Chris McKendry, an anchor for ESPN’s SportsCenter, Thursday morning. ESPN business analyst Andrew Brandt called it “a public trust issue”. And commenters across the country have been calling for Goodell to step down.
“Hour by hour, Roger Goodell’s mission to preserve the game’s integrity is failing, and any further discussion of his inability to properly deal with the NFL’s domestic violence problem has to begin and end with the commissioner’s necessary termination – preferably before Sunday,” wrote Washington Post columnist Mike Wise.
The public condemnation comes in response to a Wednesday evening Associated Press report that the NFL had months ago been sent a copy of the hotel security video published Monday by the celebrity gossip site TMZ that showed Rice punching his future wife, Janay Palmer (now Rice), in the face, knocking her unconscious.
“No one in the NFL [saw the second video] to my knowledge,” Goodell told CBS This Morning on Wednesday. “And I asked that same question and the answer to that is no.”
The same night, the NFL issued a statement responding to the AP’s report. “We have no knowledge of this. We are not aware of anyone in our office who possessed or saw the video before it was made public on Monday. We will look into it.”
Goodell had already been criticized for giving Rice only a two-game suspension, in contrast to harsher punishments meted out to NFL players caught using recreational drugs. The Ravens too came under fire for supporting Rice, including holding a press conference at which Janay Rice apologized, and tweeting, “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident.” The tweet was deleted this week.
Stung by the criticism, Goodell changed NFL policy to suspend players for six games following a domestic violence incident, and place an indefinite suspension on repeat offenders.
Still, both Rice and Goodell seemed to have weathered the storm essentially unscathed until TMZ released the footage of Rice punching Palmer. The immediate wave of outrage that followed culminated in Rice’s release from the Ravens and his suspension from the NFL being extended for an indefinite amount of time, and players and analysts alike began to question how much league and Ravens officials knew about the video and how they could have given Rice such a light punishment. Now, after the AP report, there are questions about whether there was a cover-up.
Ravens executives said Wednesday they hadn’t seen the video, but perhaps should have understood better what took place in the elevator.
“We all failed,” Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti told the Baltimore Sun. “We kind of heard what we wanted to hear and imagined what we wanted to imagine because we loved Ray.”
Rice’s discipline could hinge in part on what NFL executives knew and when they knew it. The NFL Players Association told the Guardian Thursday morning it still hadn’t received a legal letter explaining how Rice could be punished twice for seemingly the same violation. It’s unclear if Rice plans to appeal the punishment.
Barring some major revelation from the NFL’s investigation of itself, which will be conducted by former FBI director Robert Mueller and overseen by two NFL owners, Goodell’s job is likely safe.
“Owners not moving on from Goodell,” Brandt, a former NFL team executive, tweeted Wednesday. “Record broadcast contracts, team-friendly [collective bargaining agreement], $1bn+ franchise valuations, etc. Follow the money.”
“Roger [Goodell] is not a liar,” one owner, who asked not to be identified, reportedly told Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report. “He’s a good man who always wants to protect the NFL. He’s respected and liked by every owner I know. I believe Roger and the league. I trust them.”
“But I have to say that if this report is true, this is very bad for our league, and for Roger,” he said. “No owner will support him if this is true. Not one.”
And, for now at least, it may prove difficult for the league to persuade fans to forget about what has happened and move on. The Ravens were scheduled to play a nationally televised game against their chief rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, on Thursday night.
That the scheduled opening act for the game, the singer Rihanna, was a victim of domestic violence caused considerable comment on social media throughout the day. The broadcaster of the game, CBS, announced just a few hours before kickoff that it was dropping Rihanna from its plans. It also cut a planned comedic pre-game piece.
“It’s important to realize we are not overacting to this story but it is as big a story as has faced the NFL,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told SI.com. “We thought journalistically and from a tone standpoint, we needed to have the appropriate tone and coverage. A lot of the production elements we wanted in the show are being eliminated because of time or tone.”
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