There are a flood of questions that have spilled in the week since the release of a video showing former Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking his now wife unconscious.
One is whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will lose his job over his inept handling of the matter, as he initially suspended Rice just two games, then upped the punishment to an indefinite suspension after a torrent of criticism.
The answer, of course, is no, and the reason is simple: Goodell makes the 32 owners he works for far too much money for them to cut him loose, regardless of the embarrassment he’s caused.
Locally, is it not time to call into question the judgment of the men who run the Ravens, namely owner Steve Bischotti, general manager Ozzie Newsome and coach John Harbaugh?
Bischotti admitted in interviews and an open letter to season ticket holders that the Ravens didn’t fully investigate what happened in that Atlantic City casino in February.
Perhaps if they had, the tumult of last week might have been avoided, or, at least, it would have happened sooner rather than heading into the second game of the season. If this was the only time Ravens management had chosen unwisely on a player, you might be inclined to grant Bischotti and his crew some dispensation, a walk over, if you will. But, in far too many cases, when given the choice between character and talent, the team has opted for the latter.
To wit, just this offseason, the Ravens led the NFL in players who were arrested with five. No other team had more than two. Of the five players who were arrested, only Rice is not on the current roster. To be fair, charges against wide receiver Deonte Thompson, who was flagged for marijuana possession were dropped. Offensive lineman Jah Reid, who was arrested on battery charges, was placed in a pre-trial intervention program, similar to the one Rice was steered into. Still, the Ravens historically have added players who have had serious run-ins with the law. They signed wide receiver DonteStallworth after he had been suspended for a year following an incident in which he killed a man while driving drunk. Running back Jamal Lewis was inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor in 2012 a month after he was arrested and charged with child abandonment. This came seven years after he served a four month jail term for using a cell phone to facilitate a cocaine transaction. And then there’s Ray Lewis, who pled guilty to obstruction of justice in 2000 for lying to Atlanta police about what he knew regarding the deaths of two men.
Far from shunning Lewis, the team just unveiled his statue outside their stadium.
Among other things, athletics are the ultimate meritocracy. Prove that you can run faster, throw a ball further or hit another guy harder, and you’re usually welcome to the team, no questions asked. But if we’ve learned nothing else in the last week, it’s that there are times when you really do have to ask questions, whether you want to hear the answers or not.