Merged: Ray Rice Released and Suspended

[Runnin Raven]

 

I suppose we feel we need to do this, but I'll say this: I reacted too quickly in the immediate aftermath of the latest ESPN unnamed sources article. At first, I felt like we needed to respond immediately ... then understood that we'd want to wait until after game day to bother with this. The more I think about it, the more I feel like - why do we need to answer to ESPN? They are not the authority over the entire sports world (even though they may think they are). We owe them nothing. 

 

We're going to have to go through this yet again after the the official investigator reports his findings. All ESPN is doing is trying to be the first to report what they anticipate will be in that report so they can be the first to blow the lid off this huge conspiracy involving the Ravens and the NFL. 

 

I just feel like, no matter what Steve says at this point is just going to bring more criticism and more ESPN articles relating to this already tired and over-blown story. 

 

Amen brother.  That's pretty much it.  I'm gonna focus on the same thing the rest of the guys who are actually on the team are: beating Carolina

[rmcjacket23]

It's never been just that way here....  They have always been a "TEAM"....

That's all great and everything... but this "team" has never been in this situation before, nor has it faced this kind of scrutiny.

 

Not exactly the best time to send your #4 man out there to start dodging bullets, particularly when he's supposed to be leading the "team" onto the field 3 days later. We can call it a "team" for the public and the media all day long, and that stuff is warm and fluffy, but in the actual business of the Baltimore Ravens, there is undoubtedly a hierarchy. John Harbaugh is not equal on that hierarchy to Bischotti, Cass, or even Ozzie. He reports to those people, and those people determine his job status. Harbaugh has no authority in regards to determining the job status of any of those people.

 

Bottom line for me, and yes this will come off as me throwing management under the bus, but I know what Harbaugh's role is on this team, and I know what the roles of Ozzie and DeCosta are on this team. At this very moment, I can't tell you, even vaguely, what Dick Cass' role on this "team" is.

 

I know what the role of a President of a company is supposed to be, but I haven't seen that from Cass just yet, or at least, not in this situation. If I'm Bischotti, I'm making sure my President is the front man on this issue, and that he is handling it. It doesn't even matter to me if he was involved in the entire process or not... that's the role of a President. When the franchise or company is facing tough times, you stand out there and push back or defend yourself. Or... you get out.

[Static]

Thats what I've been saying this whole time. We don't owe the media anything. We should just cooperate with any investigations and play football. The Ravens Organization already lost the second Rice stepped out that elevator. 

[fusuymada]

ESPNs Kevin Van Valkenburg tweeted he wasn't attending today's news conference and won't be commenting or responding to question regarding his story. It may just be me, but when news reporters have to hide from the national media and refuse to attend a news conference precipitated by a story they "broke" it has to bring questions about the facts of the story. Too many friends of friends and sources of friends were used to develop this story and to avoid the expected questions, they are just refusing to attend and are in hiding. In the end, the truth will be known and Van Valkenburg will find it hard to get interviews or information from any NFL team in the future and only a third rate journalist would try to make his name on fictitious information. This will come back to bite Van Valkenburg who is hoping to ride this story to a new job because his coverage of the Ravens and the NFL will be hard pressed to gain traction in the future. Good luck with that Kevin.

[balfan23]

Now I see where it says Bisciotti will be on at 4, and Harbs's usual press conference has moved to 5.

 

As long as Bisciotti is up front about what went on then I hope we will be fine.

I guess I'm not sure what it is you'll be looking for here.I will have no problem if he comes forward, states that he realizes ESPN has published an article filled with speculation on actions taken by our FO and speculation on what the motives were for those actions. We do not intend to review every detail of what was contained in their article and either confirm nor refute it. We have no intention on addressing every article written on the matter, not from ESPN nor any other outlet. We are awaiting the report from the official investigation and will comment further when that report is complete. 

 

Of course, ESPN will howl, because we didn't bow down to them, but so it goes. We just don't need to have to rehash this every time ESPN feels they need to breathe new life into this tired story. 

[cwfRaven]

Interesting. Do we know when the news conference is?

[balfan23]

Interesting. Do we know when the news conference is?

5 minutes

[The Mom Gene]

WNST ‏@WNST 21m

Nestor: This press conference with Steve Bisciotti promises to be legendary. Can't wait to hear #Ravens owner react to ESPN allegations...

[rmcjacket23]

I guess I'm not sure what it is you'll be looking for here.I will have no problem if he comes forward, states that he realizes ESPN has published an article filled with speculation on actions taken by our FO and speculation on what the motives were for those actions. We do not intend to review every detail of what was contained in their article and either confirm nor refute it. We have no intention on addressing every article written on the matter, not from ESPN nor any other outlet. We are awaiting the report from the official investigation and will comment further when that report is complete. 

 

Of course, ESPN will howl, because we didn't bow down to them, but so it goes. We just don't need to have to rehash this every time ESPN feels they need to breathe new life into this tired story. 

If the Ravens have a different account and they believe that multiple false statements were made in that article, then I have no issue with them publicly addressing it. Given that the national media and quite frankly the public will take anything written as the gospel unless proven otherwise, I'm not sure the Ravens benefit at all from pretending like the story doesn't exist and just ignoring it... if the events in the story didn't take place as they said they did.

 

That, as I've now mentioned several times, is a job for UPPER management to handle, not Coach Harbaugh. Coach Harbaugh should be worrying about reviewing film, practice, and preparing his team for Sunday. I don't frankly care to hear what he has to say on the issue.

[ravensdfan]

KVV will not be attending the press conference. Really? But man, this is all your information. What's ya scared of?

 

Please.

[rmcjacket23]

KVV will not be attending the press conference. Really? But man, this is all your information. What's ya scared of?

Please.

Have you ever been aware of a time where a writer wrote an unflattering story about a franchise or ownership and then attended their rebuttal press conference?

5 minutes

Not sure why anybody would actually expect the writer of the article to actually show up.

I believe that would be highly unorthodox.

Bisciotti is pulling no punches. Wow.

[ravensdfan]

Have you ever been aware of a time where a writer wrote an unflattering story about a franchise or ownership and then attended their rebuttal press conference?

 

I can't recall a time when a writer came after a franchise like this however, I can recall writers doing just that about the President, Senators, organizations outside of sports. If this is your information and you stand by it, you'd want to be there to ask the direct questions.

[ratedr]

Bisciotti said the same thing as me. The article was decidedly pro-Rice, and the sources are all Rice's confidants.

As critical as I've been of the FO I never took the article to heart because the tone was very strange.

[berad]

Bisciotti laying it out there along with this article/letter:

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Message-To-Fans-Regarding-ESPN-Story/b2ed215d-3999-4715-b947-21b460930bc7

edit - he also reiterated that 2 games was one of the biggest suspensions for a first time DV offender - but also that he was expecting up to 6.

[ravensdfan]

Bisciotti laying it out there along with this article/letter:

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Message-To-Fans-Regarding-ESPN-Story/b2ed215d-3999-4715-b947-21b460930bc7

edit - he also reiterated that 2 games was one of the biggest suspensions for a first time DV offender - but also that he was expecting up to 6.

 

Yeah pretty much nullified the entire article and it's underhanded claims. The parts I expected did happen, accompanying him to meet with Goodell etc. had been done by owners & GMs in similar cases before. Most notably Big Ben and his troubles when Rooney was in touch with Goodell continually and accompanied Ben to his meeting.

[ratedr]

One thing's for sure: any goodwill between the organization and Rice has been burned.

[ravensdfan]

One thing's for sure: any goodwill between the organization and Rice has been burned.

 

Not too sure about that. KVV never said anything came from Rice. It all came from Jakobe, second hand, heresay etc. Could be any goodwill between Rice & Jakobe has been burned.

 

Have to wait and see.

[rmw10]

One thing's for sure: any goodwill between the organization and Rice has been burned.

Yep that ship has definitely sailed.

[gabefergy]

So they pretty much denied everything. Multiple people are definitely lying here, but for the moment I will admit I came on too strong considering at this point it's a "he said, she said" situation. There probably are facts that can and will be un-earthed so this may be a situation that drags out. 

 

I still don't buy the notion that an open-handed slap is far less serious than a fist. Janay was knocked out cold from it, or at the very least knocked over. That is a forceable blow to the head, and how that is not seen as an egregious act is beyond me.

[BSHU_Miami]

Bisciotti laying it out there along with this article/letter:

http://www.baltimoreravens.com/news/article-1/Message-To-Fans-Regarding-ESPN-Story/b2ed215d-3999-4715-b947-21b460930bc7

edit - he also reiterated that 2 games was one of the biggest suspensions for a first time DV offender - but also that he was expecting up to 6.

Wow....Steve is awesome

[ravensdfan]

So they pretty much denied everything. Multiple people are definitely lying here, but for the moment I will admit I came on too strong considering at this point it's a "he said, she said" situation. There probably are facts that can and will be un-earthed so this may be a situation that drags out. 

 

I still don't buy the notion that an open-handed slap is far less serious than a fist. Janay was knocked out cold from it, or at the very least knocked over. That is a forceable blow to the head, and how that is not seen as an egregious act is beyond me.

 

I can see where someone describing a slap as opposed to a punch is different. I picture 2 very different scenarios between a slap, she fell and hit her head, and that is why she is unconcious (let's not forget they were told they were both intoxicated. When drunk it wouldn't take as much force for you to fall down). As opposed to - yeah she hit her head but I'm pretty certain that punch would have knocked her out anyway.

[jazz1988]

Bisciotti is pulling no punches. Wow.

 

I love everything he saying especially when he said how he generally really cared for Ray Rice.

[1/28/01]

So they pretty much denied everything. Multiple people are definitely lying here, but for the moment I will admit I came on too strong considering at this point it's a "he said, she said" situation. There probably are facts that can and will be un-earthed so this may be a situation that drags out.

I still don't buy the notion that an open-handed slap is far less serious than a fist. Janay was knocked out cold from it, or at the very least knocked over. That is a forceable blow to the head, and how that is not seen as an egregious act is beyond me.

Dude, you were/are close to wearing different colors. It was sorta funny to watch/read.

[ratedr]

Not too sure about that. KVV never said anything came from Rice. It all came from Jakobe, second hand, heresay etc. Could be any goodwill between Rice & Jakobe has been burned.

Have to wait and see.

Bisciotti defined them all as "Rice's camp" and said they're building a case for reinstatement by defaming the character of the organization.

It's burned.

[berad]

So they pretty much denied everything. Multiple people are definitely lying here, but for the moment I will admit I came on too strong considering at this point it's a "he said, she said" situation. There probably are facts that can and will be un-earthed so this may be a situation that drags out. 

 

I still don't buy the notion that an open-handed slap is far less serious than a fist. Janay was knocked out cold from it, or at the very least knocked over. That is a forceable blow to the head, and how that is not seen as an egregious act is beyond me.

From what I'm reading they were invisioning a scenario of Ray defending himself which is consistent with what they said when they cut him.

[theblackdog]

Oooh Steve, that speculation on what would happen under a zero-tolerance policy, I get where you say you want it to be fair, but claiming there would be opportunistic people, not the time to bring that up...

 

EDIT: And now the video feed seems to have crashed :-/

[sflegend89]

 It's hard to forgive Ray for what he did and all the additional burden he put on his teammates and this organization as a whole but I also don't think it's right to beat a dead horse into the ground in the media when the guy has clearly already gone through hell and back losing his job and facing a vicious backlash for weeks and months on end.

 

At a certain point it's time to start spreading love instead of hate, instead of breaking him down over and over again maybe we as a society need to now offer him a helping hand back up. Ray had his day in court, he took full accountability, it's a despicable incident but it's time to move forward. People can change for the better and inspire others, that's what the human experience is about, not kicking people when they're already down. That doesn't mean all is instantly forgiven and we should act like nothing ever happened but there's nothing positive or productive from this fabricated media buzz storm that's entire purpose is to draw in additional viewers and has nothing to do with the actual morality behind what happened or you would hear the name "Greg Hardy" every 5 minutes on the news networks as well.

[RobFuseRaven]

I love everything he saying especially when he said how he generally really cared for Ray Rice.

 

He strikes me as a brutally honest guy. I don't fault the staff for being human.

[berad]

Oooh Steve, that speculation on what would happen under a zero-tolerance policy, I get where you say you want it to be fair, but claiming there would be opportunistic people, not the time to bring that up...

 

EDIT: And now the video feed seems to have crashed :-/

Mine, too, as is prone to happen unfortunately.

They'll post the full thing and transcript tonight probably.

[Gordo52]

I think he's doing a great job. Love how he said he'll answer more questions when he doesn't have to. Wants to get it all over with.