Ray Rice Case Analysis

Ray Rice was a star running back for the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL when a video of him brutally attacking his then-fiancé, now-wife Janay Palmer, was released by TMZ. The Ravens organization and the NFL took a number of steps to address the situation to avoid a crisis situation. While the NFL handled this case better than other organizations have handled other crisis situations, there are some gray areas where the NFL could have done a much better job addressing the situation (Natta & Valkenburg, 2014).
On February 15, 2014, Rice and Palmer were both arrested and charged on simple assault, however the details of the assault were unclear, but Rice’s attorney described it as a minor altercation. Four days later, on February 19, the video was

Neither Harbaugh, nor Newsome, blamed Rice of his wrongdoing. On March 24, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, Steve Bisciotti, made a promise that Ray Rice would definitely return to the team and talked him up as a pleasant, hard working individual. On March 27, Rice’s charges were upped from simple assault to aggravated assault, which meant he could have to serve up to five years in prison. Rice rejected the plea offer and applied and accepted into a pretrial intervention program. On May 23, the newlyweds, Ray and Janay, held a press conference with the assistance of the Ravens organization where Rice apologized for “The situation he and his wife were in.” His statements brought plentiful criticism to the Rice family and the Ravens organization (Key Events in the Ray Rice Story, 2014; Natta & Valkenburg, 2014).
On July 24, 2016, the NFL suspended Rice for just two regular season games as punishment for his actions, which stirred up more criticism. However, in late August, the NFL admitted fault at taking the wrong approach and announced a new domestic violence policy (Key Events in the Ray Rice Story, 2014; Natta & Valkenburg,

This crisis could have been avoided, had the NFL had a more strict policy on domestic violence and decided to suspend him indefinitely immediately following his arrest. While the Ravens organization and the NFL tried to mitigate the crisis as soon as the video was released, it was too late in the eyes of most people. The severity of the domestic abuse should not have played such a huge role in how the NFL would issue punishment. No matter the severity of domestic abuse, it is still abuse and should always be handled as a severe situation. By initially suspending Rice for just two regular season games, the NFL showed that they do not see domestic abuse as the great issue that it actually is. Because the NFL handled the situation in the way that they did, many people believe the NFL does not value domestic abuse as severely as they should, which gives them a negative reputation. If it was ever proven that the NFL did in fact see the video before it was released, they would have an even bigger crisis to