The Knock-Out Punch

Monday afternoon update: After seeing the new video, the Ravens cut Ray Rice from the team; shortly thereafter the NFL suspended him indefinitely. Based on what I'm reading it appears Rice's career in the NFL is over.

Original Post:
Have you been following the saga of Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice? Here's the short version: in an incident at the Revel Hotel in Atlantic City on February 15, Rice punched his then-fiancée Janay Palmer in the head, hard enough to knock her unconscious. Video emerged showing him dragging her, still unconscious, out of the elevator. The NFL evaluated the situation and (lightly) punished Rice with a two-game suspension. Outrage ensued, not least because of the comparison with another player who was suspended 16 games for smoking pot.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reconsidered, acknowledged that "he got it wrong" and implemented a new policy for players who beat women: A six-game suspension for the first offense, followed by indefinite suspension for a second offense. (Note that I've seen the new policy for a 2nd offense described as everything from indefinite to full season to at least one year to a lifetime ban. So it's not completely clear.)

Done deal, right? No. Now TMZ.com has video of the actual moment inside the elevator when Rice punches Palmer, and it's graphic and disturbing. The s--t is hitting the fan all over again.

I like Mike Lupica's column in today's New York Daily News; read it here.

I also agree with what Steve Almond wrote in The Daily Beast in July (before the inside-the-elevator video came out): this is what the NFL is. It's misogynistic, violent and all business. Money quote:

After all, as a nation we worship football players specifically because they embody an ideal of hyper-masculinity that is inherently violent and impulsive. Football is a world where the basic role of the female is ornamental, at best.

It’s the fans who create and sustain this ideal. We’re the ones who spend billions of dollars and hours watching the game.

And we’re the reason why, from a young age, boys with the required talent and drive are segregated from the rest of the population and granted the privileges of an effective warrior class. We’re the reason so many players come to feel they are above the law: because as a culture we make them feel as if they are.

It is foolish to think that the mindset of brutality and entitlement that has governed their identity for years simply clicks off when they shed their uniform.

Full article here. 

By-the-way, in the first paragraph I referred to Ms. Palmer as Rice's "then-fiancée." If you think that means that after getting punched into unconsciousness she told him he's toast and walked away, think again. She's now his wife. Why, why, why???