The announcement should have been greeted with stunned outrage. The Ravens were honoring Ray Rice.
Yes, that Ray Rice. The former running back, whose career ended abruptly after his very public domestic violence incident almost 10 years ago, was not only being welcomed back to a Ravens game, but honored. In 2014 this would have been unthinkable. But there he was flexing his muscles as the crowd cheered before the game.
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The Ravens came into this weekend in position to clinch not only the AFC North, but also the No. 1 overall seed in the conference and a first-round bye. They were coming off a decisive win over the 49ers in a possible Super Bowl preview and might be the best team in the NFL. They didn’t need to honor any former players to excite the fan base, the current ones are taking care of that on their own.
There should have been nothing but good feelings in the inner harbor. But in the midst of all this positivity, someone decided to shift some attention to one of the franchise’s darkest moments by honoring the perpetrator of one of the most hideous incidents of domestic violence in NFL history as a “legend of the game.”
Rice’s name is synonymous with domestic violence. He’s obviously not the only NFL player who has committed a cowardly act of abusing a woman. But because his abuse was captured on video, he became the face of it. If that video hadn’t surfaced, the NFL was just going to suspend Rice for two games. But the public outcry, once people could see the despicable act, forced the Ravens to cut him and nobody else picked him up.
But even that incredibly hard-to-watch video wasn’t enough to permanently sour the Ravens on him.
To refresh, Rice twice struck his fiancée in an Atlantic City elevator in 2014. The second blow knocked her unconscious as she hit the wall and collapsed to the floor. Rice then dragged her off the elevator. In addition to the horror of hitting her, he put her in danger by moving her. They’re both lucky he didn’t kill her or break her neck.
Rice claimed afterward that it was a one-time incident. That’s both an obvious response by him and very hard to believe watching the video. As he watches the woman he claims to love more than anyone in the world, crumble to the floor, he doesn’t look horrified at the result of his actions or worried about her well-being. Only he knows what he was actually feeling, but the optics betray him.
If Rice truly has turned his life around, he should be praised for that. If the Ravens want to use their platform to put him in front of a microphone telling other football players and other men how to get treatment or help to curb and prevent future incidents of domestic violence, that’d be great. But they should tread carefully. Abuse is rarely isolated and nobody – including the Ravens – knows what happens behind closed doors.
But even if he’s fully repented and has never done it again, it doesn’t erase what he did. It’s certainly not enough to elevate him to hero status. It sends an awful message to the current players about what is tolerated after a little time has passed.
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Ravens fans reacted like Rice was a favorite son, who’d been treated unfairly and roared their approval when he was introduced. Sadly most other fan bases would have done the same thing, except most teams, even in the NFL, would have been smart enough not to honor him to begin with.
Honoring him is embarrassing. His second chance is not being in prison. He should spend every day grateful that nothing worse came of what he did.
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
