More Details Regarding The Ravens & NFL’s Handling Of Ray Rice Case

Update:

The Baltimore Ravens have released a statement regarding the “Outside The Lines” report from Friday.

“The ESPN.com ‘Outside the Lines’ article contains numerous errors, inaccuracies, false assumptions and, perhaps, misunderstandings. The Ravens will address all of these next week in Baltimore after our trip to Cleveland for Sunday’s game against the Browns.”

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Don Van Natta Jr. and Kevin Van Valkenburg of ESPN have an incredible report out about the Baltimore Ravens and NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice assault case.

According to the report, the Ravens’ head of security, Darren Sanders, heard a detailed description of the inside-elevator scene within hours of the incident taking place and shared it with team officials.

Rice’s defense attorney, Michael J. Diamondstein, reportedly obtained a copy of the video that shows Rice punching out his then-fiancee in April. Diamondstein even told president Dick Cass: “It’s f—ing horrible.”

However, Cass never requested the tap from Diamondstein and instead urged Rice’s legal team to get him accepted into a “pretrial intervention program” that would essentially prevent the tape from being released to the public.

On top of that, the NFL took an “uncharacteristically passive approach” to gathering evidence regarding Rice’s case, which resulted in concerns that Roger Goodell gave Rice “a light punishment as a favor to his good friend [Ravens owner Steve] Bisciotti.”

The Ravens brass including Bisciotti, Cass, and GM Ozzie Newsome all urged the NFL to give Rice a light suspension for the incident.

Ravens HC John Harbaugh reportedly wanted to release Rice “immediately” and especially if the team had evidence of Rice punching her, but owner Bisciotti, team president Cass and GM Newsome rejected Harbaugh’s request.

If true, it’s very interesting that Baltimore decided to have Harbaugh be the first one to discuss the team’s decision to release Rice publicly, while the others waited days to discuss the situation with the media.

Rice received the following text messages from owner Bisciotti.

Hey Ray, just want to let you know, we loved you as a player, it was great having you here. Hopefully all these things are going to die down. I wish the best for you and Janay.

When you’re done with football, I’d like you to know you have a job waiting for you with the Ravens helping young guys getting acclimated to the league.

Rice was reportedly insulted by the texts he received as the team was essentially calling him a liar publicly and later offering him a job if kept to the story.

Rice’s friends confirmed that they saw the text messages from Bisciotti and “Outside The Lines” has confirmed with two independent sources that the number listed belongs to a cellphone regularly used by Bisciotti.

The article is quite extensive and includes a ton of information regarding all that took place, so I highly recommend reading it if you still care about the subject.