Yeah, I just saw this on ESPN. They also highlighted two stretches of the videos where it does appear that Rice spit on her twice.
It was never believable, to me at least, that nobody at the NFL saw it.
The scenario I can see is that the nfl sent somebody specific to watch the tape and then was asked if anyone else needs to see it, and no was the answer. That way they can lay blame on somebody specific and the rest of the top brass is clear. Even still, however, I am not sure I understand the motivation behind that. Plus thinking that the video would never leak is pretty juvenile in 2014.
I’m going with:
-NFL watched the video
-was afraid of bad PR so went with Rice’s explanation
-denile mode
I don’t know, this seems like such an easily checked thing and so easy to anticipate that I actually find it hard to believe that Goodell and the league top brass would be so stupid as to make the original denial if it was untrue. I’d expect them to be a lot vaguer and weasel if they actually knew that someone could stand up and say that the tape was given to them.
I suppose it could be arrogance, but I find that hard to believe too. Hm.
I wonder if the video was kept under wraps by an underling and never made it to the NFL top brass? I suppose it’s possible but seems unlikely. This keeps getting smellier…
I think it’s the arrogance of the NFL brass coming back to bite them. I’m betting the scenario went like this:
[ol]
[li]Someone at the NFL office receives the tape, along with a request to confirm receipt.[/li][li]The person at the NFL who received the tape calls and leaves the referenced voice mail saying “yep, we got, it does indeed look really bad”[/li][li]The person at the NFL then forwards the tape on to the food chain. (and from here forward is where I’m purely speculating) The muckety mucks get the tape, and say, uhh no, we can’t admit to having seen that if we want to go with a light suspension. Not knowing that the NFL person who received the tape had left a voice mail confirming receipt.[/li][li]One of the muckety mucks says “Hey, if it ever comes up, we can just say we never received or viewed this tape” Deniability and all that.[/li][/ol]
And now the shit hits the shield when it is revealed that the source who sent the tape to the NFL reveals that he/she still has the voice mail from someone at the NFL saying they had received and viewed the tape.
So who is this someone at the NFL? Well, it’s not likely to be the mailroom guy, I’ll bet you that. It’s going to be someone in the corporate headquarters attached to the security or investigations departments. Not a lowly secretary or clerk, unless they try to find a scapegoat.
Edited to Add. New reports are saying the video was sent to an “NFL Executive”
Arrogance makes perfect sense. Also older people still don’t realize it’s impossible to keep things underwraps anymore.
I still don’t know, lying about something knowing full well that someone is out there who can directly refute what you said, even if it’s only by saying, no, I sent the tape… It just doesn’t sit right somehow. I know it’s possible, maybe even probable, but it’s hard to wrap my head around.
It seems to me that, on the issue of an employer firing someone for an action like this, there are two separate questions to consider.
The first question looks something like: Should the employer fire the person for reasons of morality or principle, or should an evaluation of the person’s actions be left to the legal system? You seem to support the latter part of the argument.
Even if one accepts this position—and, as i’ve already said, i’m pretty conflicted about it—what about how to deal with something from a purely business point of view? That is, even if we argue that the employer should generally not be policing the things that people do outside the workplace, we need to realize that the things people do outside of the workplace might cause a corporation’s customers to abandon the company, thus affecting the bottom line.
In such a case, the second question becomes something like: Should the employer fire the person for driving away customers or otherwise becoming a liability to the corporation’s bottom line? If we’re willing to look at this from a purely self-interested business perspective (which, it seems to me, is what the NFL has been doing all along anyway) rather than from a moral or principled point-of-view, doesn’t a corporation have an obligation to fire an employee if the customers’ reaction to that employee’s actions might hurt the company bottom line?
Note that i’m not advocating the idea that this should be purely a business decision. I have been arguing that the NFL should fire him because its the Right Thing To Do. But even if you don’t think it’s the Right Thing To Do, might it not be the Pragmatic Thing To Do? And if your answer to the second question is Yes, then what’s wrong with also answering Yes to the first?
Well, i’ve never said that those who fail to follow my example regarding the NFL are wrong. I guess that, whenever we make a decision based on morality, it might seem to include an implied criticism of anyone who does not do the “right thing” (as we see it), but that’s not always true, at least for me.
For example, i believe that support for gay marriage is the Right Thing, and i also make a moral judgment of those who oppose it. I think less of those people for their position. They are, in my view, bad people (at least in some ways) for thinking that.
On the other hand, i’m a vegetarian and believe that not eating meat is, in some senses, the Right Thing. But i have no bone to pick at all with meat eaters. It’s one of those things where i make the judgment for myself, but where i do not think less of other people for failing to do what i do.
I’m not sure i can even explain what the key is to the distinction i make between these two things. Maybe it’s about costs and benefits. There are, in my opinion, no justifiable costs in allowing gay marriage, but there might be real costs (health, economic, etc.) that work against people choosing a vegetarian diet.
In this case, i’ve seen some commentators argue that anyone who says they support women, who opposes domestic violence, and continues to watch the NFL, is a hypocrite. I’m not sure how i feel about that; at a purely academic level, i can see the validity in the argument, but on a visceral level, i’m not sure i agree.
Well, i’m on board with basically all your other boycotts.
In this case, i guess one possibility is not that we feel very differently about the Rice incident, or even about the NFL’s response to domestic violence more generally, but that, before all this blew up, i was already disillusioned with the organization in a way that you were not, and this incident maybe forced me to think more about something that had already been eating at me about the league. I can’t explain it any more precisely than that, i’m afraid.
It doesn’t matter all that much if this is malice or incompetence. Either one would be very damning.
Of course it is. It just depends on what it is. Young or old, most sentient people understand what a secret is. Whether they keep it is certainly not a function of age.
The only ones that can fire Goodell are the 32 team owners. Sounds like they are pretty solidly behind him, even after all the revelations over the last few days. I would suspect that only if sponsors start pulling advertising or the independent investigation comes up really bad, would Goodell need to worry.
This whole thing became big because of comparisons between Rice’s suspension and NFL drug suspensions. With that in mind, it would be rather odd if Goodell suffers the same penalty for lying about the video as Rice did for starring in it.
It would also be wonderfully ironic, given Goodell’s difficulty in meting out proportionate punishments.
Sure. But John Mara doesn’t seem to give a fuck.
You’re not missing anything on the Powder deal.
I’m not sure if you are serious with this post. I am not even sure it is worth a rep,y because of hoe bizarre it is. You are clearly looking for a reaction.
This would be a good answer if it weren’t wrong. Yesterday, after the AP story came out, it was reported that the original tape, which was much clearer and of better quality, clearly showed him spitting on her. The first spit, where I pointed it out, is actually visible on the original, and follows his head movement perfectly. I can’t remember what network reported this, but unless it was a sneeze with everything blowing out of his mouth, he spit on her as they were walking toward the elevator. The second spit is less clear, but the head motion is the same. The report I heard stated exactly what I said a couple of days ago. He spit on her twice. And after each spit, she slapped his face. The second slap came right before the left hook.
Why did he spit on her? I don’t know. I have not heard an explanation and I have not seen anything where Janay accused him of spitting. But why someone who saw the clear version of the tape would make this up, I don’t know.
You make this sound like she is in full blown attack mode and he takes a playful swipe at her, accidentally hitting her. I can’t argue this with you because you sound like a Ray Rice (or a women abuser) apologist. I don’t know what to do with that.
Again, you make it sound like she was pummeling the poor man. She weighs what, 130 lbs? He goes 265. He hit her hard, and he would have knocked down most men with that swing. (IMO, of course, your jaw may differ.)
Again, a ridiculous statement. He obviously doesn’t knock her unconscious on a regular basis? Seriously? That’s your position? Ok, then! Ray’s a prince. Maybe he’s knocked her out two or three times previously, but certainly it can’t be construed as regular.
Your POV is odd, to say the least.
“Reportedly hit and he defends himself.” Yeah. Sure. He was in mortal danger, and she is lucky he didn’t have a gun, because in your mind, he would have been justified in using it.
But it is not despicable for a 265 lb professional athlete to deck a small woman and drag her out of the elevator like she was a sack of dirty laundry? I see where you are coming from. :dubious: (where is the old roll eyes smilie?)
“Repeatedly assaulted”? “Self defense”? Your take on this is beyond odd. It is flat out wrong.
Yeah, you are right. It was all her fault. :smack: she is lucky he didn’t kill her, for all the punishment she dished out.
I will let someone else take your post to the pit, where it belongs with a proper response.
I doubt it.
I heard yesterday an explanation that had a ring of truth to it.
The person said that what probably happened is that Goodell watched this tape with legal council, thereby making it privileged and not something that could ever come out unless he comes out and states that he saw it, which there is no way in hell he can or will do now.
I guess it IS possible that your scenario is correct, however to me it doesn’t pass the smell test. I can see an underling stating “i have seen the tape, and Mr. Commish, you don’t want to see it.” If something like that occurred, Goodell is still lying because he claims he has no knowledge of anyone seeing this.
If I worked at the NFL headquarters right now, i would go into Goodell’s office and say “you are in a very bad spot. The NFL is in a bad spot. I will take the blame for receiving the tape and never showing it to anyone else or telling anyone else I received it. And. I will do it for the sum of $20 million dollars.”
Now, $20 MM is just a starting point, but the NFL could write me a check and have this all go away in a day. That is $20 MM well spent, IMO. The dollar amount does have some wiggle room.
Counsel. And that explanation has no ring of truth at all. That’s not how the attorney/client privilege works. Even assuming he watched it with an attorney, only Goodell’s communications with the attorney are privileged. The fact that he watched it is not.
Goodell’s only real saving grace here is that he added the qualifier “to the best of my knowledge” to his statements to CBS News.
Holy shit. This is the most ridiculous post in defense of anyone since that drive-by who told us Putin was a prince among men and would lead the world into a new era of peace and prosperity when Russia regained its place as the world’s superpower, or something.
Seriously: what are you on, and can I have some?
Yes, he’s serious; no, it isn’t worth it. If you aren’t familiar with the poster, he’s a bit of an, uh, extremist.
I don’t think you can keep something this big secret.
They seriously need to just take all these guys fucking social media accounts away from them the day they enter professional sports. Dumbassery seems to run rampant in pro sports but for some reason doesn’t seem as prolific in general, hollywood stars.
Seriously. Who was the coach that said “nothing good happens after midnight”? Bill Parcells? Nothing good happens on Twitter if you’re a pro athlete either.
As for Hollywood stars, most of them make a living by talking - even if they’re repeating somebody else’s words - so it kind of figures that they say fewer dumb things on social media.
As a side note, one of the hardest things to adjust to when I moved to the US was how incredibly bad most American pro athletes are in interviews. I think Peyton Manning is the only guy who I’ve ever watched a presser for and not cringed. It’s not as though sportsmen in other countries are all Cyrano de Bergerac but generally they understand sentence structure and don’t speak in cliches.
It’s all relative. You ever listen to sports analysts? Coaches? Sports-talk radio show hosts? (Not to mention callers.)
I agree that a lot of these athletes are dumber than bricks, but if you adjust the scale for the rest of the people in that field, they’re not as bad as they seem at first glance.
[I’m not an expert on athletes, but I would add Kareem Abdul Jabbar to your list of exceptions. I once heard him interviewed in some analysis-type situation, and he was pretty thoughtful.]