That's actually the part that bothers me the most. He didn't seem to react at all to the fact that he knocked her out cold. There's no way this is the first time it's happened, and despite it probably happening before she went at him in an argument. I'm content with the idea that they're both shitty people who deserve each other. Hopefully they spend the rest of their lives broke, unfamous, and sterile.
to me the fallout and backlash on all this is weird. did anyone not know that ray rice had hit her so hard she became unconscious? Then why is the fact that there's now a video change anything. It's vile, and reprehensible, but the outcry feels forced. We've been talking about this for 6 months, but now that our fears are confirmed it's like we're begging for a reaction.
I don't think football players need to "turn it off" in order to not hit a woman who poses no physical threat coming at them. That's just a violent guy. Maybe football attracts more violent people, but it's a pretty far reach to say that football made him do this.
Human adults should know the difference between right and wrong. If she comes at you with a knife, morality goes out the window and you defend yourself as you should. If she doesn't, you can simply stop her from hitting you. Men are well over twice as strong as women on average.
Well, you see, he professionally bobs and weaves and avoids tacklers, so that's basically training him to punch people the fuck out all the time. Also, jumping to the conclusion that he puts up with "verbal shit all the time from his spouse" from the fact that he abused her? What the fuck, man? He hit the shit out of her, so she must be a nag? Of course someone else the NFL has probably done this before. There are 2,016 players under contract at any point in time and even more former players, and a large number of them come from poverty and low levels of parental education, which generally correlates with crime. And they've largely been insulated from social consequence their entire life.
I literally just slow blinked your post. Reread it... Slow blinked again. SOLDIERS who go to ACTUAL WAR and are taught to be ACTUALLY VIOLENT don't even consider this acceptable behavior. Yes, there are men who beat their wives after deployment, but the Army takes a stance that it's not okay and has (at least in my experience) programs set up to assist that situation. The NFL has a code of conduct but until now has been able to turn a blind eye to things like this. Yes. He absolutely SHOULD be able to just 'turn it off' when he's off the field...he's paid to play a game and good god I hope he's intelligent enough a being to recognize when he isn't playing a game and when he is. He's not out there fighting for survival, dodging bullets, and hoping to be alive minute to minute. He's playing a game.
Even better. It's a business. Absolutely NO reason, from a business standpoint, to punch your fiancee in the face. That's just bad business, no matter how you shake it.
The only thing thats still just a game is the national teams. But even those have huge business considerations.
Absolutely. Again, I'm not condoning what he did, I'm just saying that some people have problems controlling their rage/reactions, and it didn't help that he lives and breathes (well, used to) the violence that is football. Some alcoholics can bar-tend, some can't. The NFL isn't some happy go lucky lawn bowling club... and there's a reason so many thugs and felons thrive in that environment. As much as the NFL marketing department wants you to think that they're all good boys, there are some real fucking animals in the game, and he's one of them.
Someone during a Facebook discussion among my friends made this observation over the Ray Rice video: "This was a marital dispute and has nothing to do with his job. If everyone was fired for the stupid things they do off the clock there would be no work force." I think we can all agree working as a player in the NFL is vastly different than a typical officer or factory worker. However, I think the guy did raise a valid point. If a worker has an issue that occurs outside of the workplace which does not impact job performance, can or should they be held accountable at work for misdeeds done during off time? What if the video instead caught one of the Ravens accountants hitting his fiance? He's still an employee of an NFL team. Is he subject to suspension or firing? Food for thought
It is a lot easier to ignore or downplay something that amounts to words on a page than it is to see it actually happening. Kind of like reading about historical events in a textbook and it is, literally, academic. And then you go to the site of a major event, a museum, etc, and it becomes a lot more real.
Sterling, and Ray Rice bring up an interesting situation where your personal life, where personal comments and events can be used to leverage you out of a job. 50 years ago, these things would never come to light, but living the the media age that we do, personal life events are not shielded from the public anymore. I think Mark Cuban was worried about how this effects the top end of teams. Say there is a dispute among owners, normally it would be worked out/fought behind the board doors, but now any incriminating thing that a person may have said can be used to push them out. Say this trickles down to the level of the average, entry level employee, what happens then? No one is perfect, best not to throw rocks in a glass house right? It'll be interesting to see how things shape up in the next 5 years. What Sterling said and what Rice did are reprehensible for sure. However, it presents an obviously slippery slope.
If your factory becomes known as the place where all the wife-beaters work....can't sell no cheese, partner.
What strikes me as a bit weird in that video (aside from "all of it") is that it begins with her slapping him and him doing nothing. For me, if I get hit, me hitting back -- IMMEDIATELY -- is just a reflex. Especially if it comes from no where (like most slaps/hits to the face are). So that he didn't immediately hit her back implies he had time to think about it, or at least he was the "cooler head" for a little while.... And then he goes out and gives her cauliflower ear with one blow. So that doesn't add up. And I agree with the earlier poster who mentioned how we already knew Rice knocked out his fiance months ago, so it doesn't make sense that the punishments are now changing simply because there is a video to go along with it.
You think an NFL accountant, caught on camera hitting his wife and dragging her out of an elevator, with the video going public, wouldn't be fired? I almost guarantee that they'd be fired FASTER than Rice got suspended because that's a strictly internal process and not something they have to deal with the NFLPA or collective bargaining agreement for. And I suspect a lot of businesses would fire an employee that caused a public backlash. Obviously not everyone gets fired for hitting their wife, but Rice didn't really get fired for that, he got fired because it was a shocking, violent video and it got published to the world. That becomes the face of any company unless they terminate the employee. In any event, part of playing in the NFL is agreeing to a code of public conduct. Part of my employment agreement is not smoking pot. I could get high on the weekend and not have it affect my job, but that's something I agree to not do as a condition of my employment.
A Taco Bell employee took a picture of himself in uniform, licking tacos that were about to be thrown away anyway. Then he posted that picture on facebook, and it went viral. Taco Bell fired him during the backlash. Over a fucking PICTURE. Food for thought.