On the same day that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stumbled his way through an embarrassing press conference to address the NFL’s response to recent off-field incidents, ESPN’s Outside The Lines unleashed an in-depth report on how the Baltimore Ravens used every damage control tactic in the book after hearing about the elevator incident involving Ray Rice and his then-fiancee Jenay Palmer. According to OTL, not only were the Ravens made aware of the video, but their director of security was given a play-by-play of the inside video from a Revel casino employee just hours after the incident:
Just hours after running back Ray Rice knocked out his then-fiancée with a left hook at the Revel Hotel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Baltimore Ravens’ director of security, Darren Sanders, reached an Atlantic City police officer by phone. While watching surveillance video — shot from inside the elevator where Rice’s punch knocked his fiancée unconscious — the officer, who told Sanders he just happened to be a Ravens fan, described in detail to Sanders what he was seeing.
Sanders quickly relayed the damning video’s play-by-play to team executives in Baltimore, unknowingly starting a seven-month odyssey that has mushroomed into the biggest crisis confronting a commissioner in the NFL’s 95-year history.
Once the information was relayed to team officials, the team exhausted every avenue to reduce the damage:
After the Feb. 15 incident in the casino elevator, Ravens executives — in particular owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass and general manager Ozzie Newsome — began extensive public and private campaigns pushing for leniency for Rice on several fronts: from the judicial system in Atlantic County, where Rice faced assault charges, to commissioner Goodell, who ultimately would decide the number of games Rice would be suspended from this fall, to within their own building, where some were arguing immediately after the incident that Rice should be released.
The Ravens also consulted frequently with Rice’s Philadelphia defense attorney, Michael J. Diamondstein, who in early April had obtained a copy of the inside-elevator video and told Cass: “It’s f—ing horrible.” Cass did not request a copy of the video from Diamondstein but instead began urging Rice’s legal team to get Rice accepted into a pretrial intervention program after being told some of the program’s benefits. Among them: It would keep the inside-elevator video from becoming public.
For its part, the NFL — which in other player discipline cases has been able to obtain information that’s been sealed by court order — took an uncharacteristically passive approach when it came to gathering evidence, opening itself up to widespread criticism, allegations of inconsistent approaches to player discipline and questions about whether Goodell gave Rice — the corporate face of the Baltimore franchise — a light punishment as a favor to his good friend Bisciotti. Four sources said Ravens executives, including Bisciotti, Cass and Newsome, urged Goodell and other league executives to give Rice no more than a two-game suspension, and that’s what Goodell did on July 24.
What also hasn’t been reported (until now) is a text message Bisciotti sent to Rice, moments after Bisciotti had sent a letter to season ticket holders following his decision to release him:
Bisciotti and the team released a letter to Ravens season-ticket holders contending that the team had not seen the video until the morning of Sept. 8, when TMZ released it to the public, and that they found it “violent and horrifying” and had voted unanimously to release Rice. Bisciotti also stated that the team would be donating $600,000 to the House of Ruth, the Baltimore shelter for battered women. Rice and his friends read the letter with barely concealed contempt and disgust. “I think a lot of people were quick to say ‘Oh what a stand-up guy,'” Jakobe said. “I think if you look at it objectively, it’s a massive cover-up attempt.”
Minutes later, Rice’s phone buzzed. He could scarcely believe what he was looking at– back-to-back text messages from Bisciotti. Rice read them aloud so everyone in the room could hear them:
Hey Ray, just want to let you know, we loved you as a player, it was great having you here. Hopefully all these things are going to die down. I wish the best for you and Janay.
When you’re done with football, I’d like you to know you have a job waiting for you with the Ravens helping young guys getting acclimated to the league.
According to multiple sources, Rice believes it was some sort of bribe in order to stick to his story of misleading the team, with some sort of payoff guaranteed down the line. The Ravens don’t deny that Bisciotti sent the texts, either. Regardless of the intent, it’s another episode in an on-going saga that is making all parties look worse with each passing day.
[ESPN]
