Ray_rice

This morning, when video of Ray Rice knocking his fiancée unconscious inside of an elevator surfaced, the outcry that should have never subsided over his original two-game suspension reached an all-time high. Our ability as football fans to be outraged by the lack of serious punishment against Rice but still move on from it because we didn’t see what happened went out the window, and Rice got cut by the Ravens because of TMZ.

Even if we pretend (or believe) that the NFL didn’t see this video, and the only person who knew what happened in that elevator until recently was Rice, we now know (and it’s likely the NFL and the Ravens did too) that this is a man who sat on a stage, in what was then one of the more embarrassing press conferences known to man (it looks even worse now), and listened to his wife apologize for her part in the incident. This is a man who, after his wife apologized, repeatedly said that he would not let the incident knock him down, and that he was going to get back up. This is a man who hit his fiancée once, and then again in an elevator. And after his fiancée received a brutal left hook from him, he watched her head smash against a railing. He then stood still, over his fiancée, not once flinching towards her to see if her motionless body was okay, like a prize fighter after landing an impossible blow. This is a man who, in the previous video we saw (though there was no sound), appeared to drag his unconscious fiancée out of said elevator and look around, all while giving off a strong Shaggy Defense vibe.

Current and former players began to call for Rice’s lifetime ban. Even Rice’s teammates, who supposedly believed Rice when he told them he was just defending himself when he viciously knocked his fiancée unconscious, began to turn on him. Rice’s two-game suspension for domestic abuse was repulsive, but had already fallen by the headline-wayside. But everything changed once we all saw what happened with our own eyes.

Roger Goodell suspended Rice… just after the Ravens fired him. And the sad fact is, this didn’t happen because Ray Rice knocked his fiancée unconscious. It didn’t happen because he’s a violent domestic abuser. And it didn’t happen because the NFL or the Ravens are standing up for what is right. It happened because TMZ got video of it.