The Ray Rice Elevator Video

One more trip down memory lane:

Who was the reporter (ESPN? NFLN?) who asked Rice after the first exhibition game what his wife said for words of encouragement before the first game?

 

Well, there goes my permanent guest spot on "Hot Takes."

 

Since it's the CBS game Thursday, I go with Armen Keteyian. Lends an investigative air to the piece while still getting a friendly.

 

Peter King, this afternoon, not exactly draped in glory:

Earlier this summer a source I trusted told me he assumed the NFL had seen the damaging video that was released by TMZ on Monday morning of Rice slugging his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in an Atlantic City elevator. The source said league officials had to have seen it. This source has been impeccable, and I believed the information. So I wrote that the league had seen the tape. I should have called the NFL for a comment, a lapse in reporting on my part. The league says it has not seen the tape, and I cannot refute that with certainty. No one from the league has ever knocked down my report to me, and so I was surprised to see the claim today that league officials have not seen the tape.

I hope when this story is fully vetted, we all get the truth and nothing but the truth.

I basically believe nothing I read any more.

 

I do hope someone asks Goodell if all these reporters got the same thing wrong. It is YankeeFan's dream scenario -- all that access for them to repeat "trust us, there's more to it."

 

Now that I think on it I believe a woman should get the interview.

 

I don't know. I'm guessing a few people were told, "If you want to keep your job you make sure nobody has any idea we've seen that tape." if that was the case. It could also be a case of "They saw a tape, but not the tape."

I don't know if it's poor reporting or a perfect shitstorm.

 

My money is on Melissa Stark for NFLN.

 

Here's what I don't get.

Assuming that he saw the tape, or knew what was in it, or knew as much as we knew, why the hell does Roger Godell put his neck on the line for ... Ray fucking Rice?

 

I think within league offices they deal with domestic violence so often they don't think it's that big of a deal. I think they believed two games was a stiff penalty and are shocked by the blowback.

Double Down mentioned it earlier, but the Greg Hardy case was way worse and he's still playing. There's a guy like that on probably half the teams or more.

 

His wife is really going to get it now. And that's not a joke.

 

The tape, though, man, the tape. I said it right away, and I am not someone blessed with some particularly terrific perception of these situations: That tape changed everything. Joe Blow Washed-Up Sports Writer taking breaks at his desk could see that, but Roger Goodell, czar of football, son of a United States Senator, gets blind-sided?