The National Football League

Indifference71

Jason P said:

Ray Rice knocks out his fiance and drags her back to the hotol room ... in Atlantic City where there are thousands of cameras ... and is suspended 2 games.

LaVon Brazill fails a drug test for smoking a doobie and is suspended for the entire season and lost his job.

What in the fucking fuck is going on? Has the whole world gone crazy?

I was just about to post the same exact thing. The NFL is ridiculous. It's one thing if the guys testing positive for coke or some other hard-core drug, but this is just weed. I know it's not the first time that the guys tested positive for the whole season for weed???? Insane. They really need to revisit their drug policy.

rr165892

Weed policy is headed for a more lenient change.Its common

norm

beating your wife is a mistake?? fuck you harbaugh and fuck the nfl

MayDay10

http://deadspin.com/this-is-a-browns-fan-pissing-on-art-modells-grave-1609319652

Poncier

norm said:

beating your wife is a mistake?? fuck you harbaugh and fuck the nfl

Stay classy Baltimore.

rr165892

So wait its not ok to punch out my bitch in an elevator.Thanks Coach, You learn something new everyday

Jason P

Ravens Warn Rookies To Save Some Extra Money For Bail

BALTIMORE—Reminding them that it’s something even the league’s highest paid superstars must do, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh reportedly took time Monday to advise the team’s incoming class of rookies to set aside savings for future bail payments. “It’s imperative that you guys start putting aside some money here and there—even if it’s only a few hundred dollars each month in a savings account—for when you’re sitting in a county jail at 4 a.m. and need to come up with a surety bond,” said Harbaugh, reminding the incoming players that their financial planning should also cover any potential legal fees for subsequent court hearings. “It may not seem like a big deal now, but we’ve unfortunately seen many great players suffer as a result of being totally unprepared for their future arrests. I know you see this big paycheck every week and it’s tempting to spend all of it right away, but just remember that you’ll need that money down the line for hefty state fines after pleading guilty to what will hopefully only be a few misdemeanor charges.” According to team sources, Harbaugh then reminded players that the Ravens offer financial advising to map out long-term investment plans so they can comfortably afford bail and legal costs long after their playing careers are over.

theonion.com/articles/ravens-warn-rookies-to-save-some-extra-money-for-b,36403/

F Me In The Brain

Indifference71 said:

Jason P said:

Ray Rice knocks out his fiance and drags her back to the hotol room ... in Atlantic City where there are thousands of cameras ... and is suspended 2 games.

LaVon Brazill fails a drug test for smoking a doobie and is suspended for the entire season and lost his job.

What in the fucking fuck is going on? Has the whole world gone crazy?

I was just about to post the same exact thing. The NFL is ridiculous. It's one thing if the guys testing positive for coke or some other hard-core drug, but this is just weed. I know it's not the first time that the guys tested positive for the whole season for weed???? Insane. They really need to revisit their drug policy.

Just read this and figured you guys posted on it -- this is totally fucked up and makes me want to knock Roger Goddell out. What a horrible, horrible deal.
I also think that making the issue about weed is minimizing how stupid this is -- I dont care if the guy got caught doing rails off the coach's wife's ass or nodded out with a needle in his arm in the locker room. Those two things do not involve hurting someone else. (Well, no saying how the coach might feel about his wife being the player's mirror-ass to snort lines off from)

I love the game but this is total bullshit and these guys need to change this. Ray Rice is a piece of shit and I would applaud him getting an ACL his first game back and missing the season. Anyone who punches their wife out should be put in jail.

Fucking animal.

F Me In The Brain

I just asked my 9 year old nephew to take down the poster of Ray Rice (it was a pullout from SI a year or so ago...he has about 50 different cut outs taped all over his room at our house) and he asked why. I explained the basics of what was in the news today and he ran up and took it down, crumpled it into a ball and said "if he hit my mother I would kick his butt!"
lol.

DewieCox

Do we know about anything that happened prior to him dragging her out of the elevator? I think he's admitted he has a problem, but they're working it out, so I assume she's accepting some guilt in the situation.

I think it's bogus that anybody is getting suspended a year for weed, but that's the deal the players made.

JV130312

Lane Johnson suspended 4-Games for PEDs. Rice Suspended 2 games for beating his wife. James Harrison fined $125,000 for knocking out Colt McCoy. Ray Rice fines $58,000 for knocking out his wife. Ben Roethlisberger suspended 6 games for conduct detrimental to the league (never charged or found guilty of anything.) Ray Rice suspended 2 games for admitting to beating his wife...or I'm sorry...making a mistake.

Jason P

I guess the bar is set when one of your employees stabs someone to death and doesn't miss a game. And you have a star running back who is a drug running cocaine. (both of whom are in the Raven's "Ring of Honor"). Well, when you look at it at that angle, I guess knocking out a woman and dragging her thru a casino really isn't that bad of an offense. A two game suspension is actually a harsh penalty.

Hell, if you play for the Ravens, setting a hobo on fire probably means you just have to sit out the first half of a preseason game.

JK_Livin

What about the legal system's role in this? He wasn't charged with a crime. The wife is partly to blame for the light sentence because she wants her gravy train to keep rolling.

You guys do realize for someone to be suspended a year for weed/drugs, it's probably like the
100th time they've tested positive. Rules are rules and the players accepted them.

Peter King's article below.

The Ray Rice Fallout
Ray Rice was suspended two games for his domestic-violence arrest and immediately the reaction was the Ravens running back got off light. Is this the 'wake-up call' some say he needed? Baltimore and the NFL are about to find out

By
Peter King
· More from Peter·
33


OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Head bowed, Ray Rice went out to his first practice of his seventh NFL season Thursday morning. General manager Ozzie Newsome had just told him he’d be suspended for the first two games of the 2014 NFL season — important division games against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh at home — and Rice, still trying to digest the news, was reserved during the opening day of Ravens’ camp.

The Ravens caught a major break Thursday with the league’s announcement of a two-game suspension for Rice in the wake of his domestic-violence arrest last winter at an Atlantic City hotel. Rice, too, caught a break … except in the court of public opinion.

Rice and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who meted out the punishment (including docking Rice three game checks, or $529,000) got roasted in the wake of the sanctions, which is certainly light when compared to, say, recreational drug use. A third positive test for marijuana, for instance, nets a player a four-game suspension without pay. Compare it to some potentially performance-enhancers: A first positive test for Adderall is a four-game ban too.

But a physical confrontation with a woman in which the woman was knocked unconscious—in a league courting women as fans and consumers, and talking up the horrors of domestic violence—cost Rice half that time, and less of a fine. Thus the public outrage when the news broke at midday Thursday. When the incident happened last winter, hotel video surfaced that showed Rice dragging fiancé Janay Palmer, apparently unconscious, out of an elevator. And that’s the image American cannot get out of its mind.

.
This is why Goodell was softer on Rice than a four-game suspension:

Rice’s wife, a source said, made a moving and apparently convincing case to Goodell during a June 16 hearing at Goodell’s office in Manhattan—attended by Rice, GM Ozzie Newsome, club president Dick Cass of Baltimore; and Goodell, Jeff Pash and Adolpho Birch of the league—that the incident in the hotel elevator was a one-time event, and nothing physical had happened in their relationship before or since. She urged Goodell, the source said, to not ruin Rice’s image and career with his sanctions.
This was Rice’s first violation of any NFL policy—personal-conduct or substance-abuse—in his six-year NFL career.
Rice was not convicted of a crime in conjunction with the incident, and the New Jersey prosecutor chose not to pursue a case against him last spring after he entered a pre-trial counseling program.
Rice has been the Ravens’ leading player in volunteer work in the community. At the time of the assault, he led a Maryland anti-bullying campaign. At the Super Bowl last winter, he was part of an NFL player panel for a cable-TV anti-bullying show and spoke emotionally about needing to be vigilant on the subject.
Rice admitted his mistake soon after the incident and went into counseling.
Still, there’s no guarantee—and Goodell knows it—that he made the right call. If Rice makes one mistake and assaults one woman the rest of his career, this decision will appear a colossal mistake by a commissioner who has been very tough in player discipline during his eight-year NFL tenure. And if he assaults another person while in the NFL, the wrath of Goodell likely will be unforgiving.

Janay Rice reportedly made an impassioned plea to the NFL as it considered her husband's punishment. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Janay Palmer reportedly made an impassioned plea to the NFL as it considered her husband’s punishment. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
This has been a humbling experience for Rice, as it should be. He knows that no matter what precipitated the fight with Palmer, there’s never an excuse for laying his hands on a woman.

“Sometimes you need a wake-up call,’’ said a person with close ties to Rice, in the wake of the suspension. “That’s what this is for Ray. He’s a good person—people need to know that. But sometimes good people get off track. I can promise you this has gotten Ray back on track this off-season. He’s legitimately angry with himself for making this mistake. I know after it happened he was sick about it. Now he’s got to pay for it.”

Not that they compare, but Rice was already dealing with challenges in his football career. His 2013 season was a disaster. He weighed in too heavy for a 5-8 running back whose game was suppose to feature quickness, and his production plummeted. After averaging 4.7 and 4.4 yards per rush in 2011 and 2012, a heavier Rice crashed to 3.1 yards per rush and 660 yards total last year. It wasn’t all his fault, certainly. The offensive line was leaky and awful. But Rice was bothered tremendously about his production, and after some of his worst games, he’d text or call Ravens staffers asking them to review how he was playing.

The persona and professional crises, one Ravens’ source said, caused Rice to re-dedicate himself to football and his personal life this off-season—and to try to begin to repair his image. He’s gotten down to about 204 entering camp, his lowest weight since his rookie year, and new offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, who plans to make the Ravens more of a running team this year, thinks Rice can be the centerpiece of the running game.

Starting in Week 3, as it turns out. Whether Rice can be one of the NFL’s best multipurpose backs again this season—it was as recent as 2011 that he had 2,068 rushing-receiving yards—remains to be seen. He’ll be under the microscope, and rightfully so, more for what he does off the field, than his offensive production in the coming months. A nervous league office will be watching his every step.

Indifference71

JK_Livin said:

What about the legal system's role in this? He wasn't charged with a crime. The wife is partly to blame for the light sentence because she wants her gravy train to keep rolling.

Whether he was charged with a crime doesn't matter with the way King Goodell runs this league. Roethlisberger got 6 games and he wasn't even arrested. Rice was arrested but then they decided not to charge him for some reason.

And of course his wife gave some moving speech....you think she wants him to miss out on that much money if he got a long suspension?? The whole thing is a joke.

F Me In The Brain

Indifference71 said:

JK_Livin said:

What about the legal system's role in this? He wasn't charged with a crime. The wife is partly to blame for the light sentence because she wants her gravy train to keep rolling.

Whether he was charged with a crime doesn't matter with the way King Goodell runs this league. Roethlisberger got 6 games and he wasn't even arrested. Rice was arrested but then they decided not to charge him for some reason.

And of course his wife gave some moving speech....you think she wants him to miss out on that much money if he got a long suspension?? The whole thing is a joke.

Pretty much this. I am one of those that saw how he dragged her out of the hotel and I have a family member who was a punching bag for a man she was with once and it is a sore spot personally. Fuck him, I am biased based on past history, but the message this sends is total bullshit. Peter King is someone I like to read, and have for years and years like many of us, but I also feel he is in the NFL's pocket.
As Indy said -- the whole thing is a joke.

You could get busted with weed or coke for the millionth time and I dont care. Steroids? Dont give a fuck. Beating on other people, especially a woman, and I am exercising my right to be a judgmental fool.

Indifference71

F Me In The Brain said:

Indifference71 said:

JK_Livin said:

What about the legal system's role in this? He wasn't charged with a crime. The wife is partly to blame for the light sentence because she wants her gravy train to keep rolling.

Whether he was charged with a crime doesn't matter with the way King Goodell runs this league. Roethlisberger got 6 games and he wasn't even arrested. Rice was arrested but then they decided not to charge him for some reason.

And of course his wife gave some moving speech....you think she wants him to miss out on that much money if he got a long suspension?? The whole thing is a joke.

Peter King is someone I like to read, and have for years and years like many of us, but I also feel he is in the NFL's pocket.
.

I hear ya. I love reading MMQB and most of the stuff that King writes. But like you said, you always get this feeling like he is in the NFL's pocket. The fact that he didn't disagree with the decision was surprising...he's usually one of these guys on the internet that gets all up in arms over nothing. And now it's something to actually be up in arms about, but he doesn't have much of an opinion.

norm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fc_AnLaBew

Cliffy6745

norm said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fc_AnLaBew

Phenomenal

Cliffy6745

I am looking forward to the day when I have absolutely zero interest in the NFL. Don't think it is that far off.

F Me In The Brain

norm said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fc_AnLaBew

Not a huge olbermann guy any longer (was years ago w/DP on Sportscenter) but I agree with his tirade this time and think it is justified.

I love the game but this makes a joke of all of the other punishments handed down by the league. Now they are the NCAA's infractions committee and deciding that the punishment fits the perp rather than the crime.