NFL Commissioner Manages To Blame Janay Rice For Ray Rice’s Soft Punishment

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (from Atlanta Falcons' Flickr feed)
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (from Atlanta Falcons’ Flickr feed)

Just when you thought the Ray Rice affair couldn’t get more offensive, it probably did. It now appears that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell initially suspended Rice for two games for hitting his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer, because he didn’t want to drag Janay’s name through the mud–even after Rice told Goodell he’d hit Janay.


On Thursday, an anonymous NFL owner told The Wall Street Journal about several private conversations Goodell had held with him and several other owners about the Rice affair. According to the unnamed owner, Goodell said that when he met with Ray and Janay Rice (as they now were–they married in March) on June 16, Janay said she hit Rice first and felt she was partly to blame for what happened in the elevator of the Revel casino in Atlantic City. The anonymous?owner said that Goodell initially believed that Janay had become unconscious when she fell during the scuffle. When Goodell handed down the original two-game suspension, the commissioner felt that if he doubted Janay’s story, he would have come across as smearing Janay’s character. According to two other people familiar with the reasoning Goodell initially used to justify the original suspension, Goodell soft-pedaled the investigation because he was reluctant to challenge Janay’s version of events. However, just a few hours before The Journal’s story went online, ESPN’s Don Van Natta reported that later on June 16, Rice admitted to Goodell that he hit Janay and knocked her out.

So let’s see if we’ve got this right. Even after Rice admitted that he’d hit Janay, Goodell wasn’t willing to question Janay’s claim that she was partly responsible for the scuffle in the elevator. Goodell then gave Rice an insultingly short “suspension” of two games because anything longer than that would have come off as challenging Janay’s character. If you’re having trouble getting your head around this, don’t worry. So am I.

Goodell’s meeting with the Rices broke every rule on how domestic violence should be investigated. According to Deadspin’s Barry Petchetsky, anything Janay said–especially with Rice in the room–should have been taken with a generous helping of salt. A victim taking responsibility for abuse is a textbook case of battered-spouse syndrome. I know. I experienced it firsthand during my own three-year experience with an abusive marriage. There were times I wanted to leave, and I was afraid to because part of me thought I wasn’t doing enough to keep our marriage together. Petchetsky points out that anyone experienced with domestic violence would know that victims will often do anything to protect the one they love, no matter how bad it gets. In my case, it meant keeping up the appearance that all was well–even though some of my family and friends could tell I wasn’t happy.

Yet, Goodell could have made up for all of that once Rice told him he’d hit Janay. Even though that admission eliminated any good-faith interpretation of the originally-released video showing Rice dragging Janay out of the elevator, Goodell didn’t have the basic curiosity to question Janay’s story. The only explanation I can think of that doesn’t stray into conspiracy-theory territory is that Goodell was being deferential to prosecutors’ decision to put Rice in a pretrial intervention program rather than put him on trial. Remember, pretrial intervention was put on the table when Janay wasn’t willing to testify against Rice. Indeed, Goodell initially based the original suspension in part due to this decision by prosecutors. In deferring to that decision however, Goodell ignored the larger question of whether a player who hits a woman should get significant discipline.


All of this considered, the initial decision to suspend Rice for two games looks even more outrageous than it already did. Any commissioner who thinks handing a lengthy suspension to a player who hits a woman would somehow amount to slandering the victim’s character has no business running a major sports league. And any commissioner who hears a player admit to hitting a woman and doesn’t know it calls for a lengthy suspension has no business running a major sports league. Both together? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–Goodell has to go.

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edited by h/l


Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC at Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.