Ray Rice reinstated.

[OzExorcist]

"For who?" is the question I'm still left asking...

According to the draft experts, there are going to be a whole heap of quality backs available in the draft this year: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ignal-positions-return-to-nfl-draft-spotlight

They're cheap, don't have the miles on the clock that Rice has, and don't carry any of Rice's PR downsides. And that's before you even get to the free agency market.

So it's not like teams don't have options. It's not like he's a franchise-level QB, something that multiple teams need that is in short supply. There are plenty of running backs getting around, even very good ones.

Maybe he could still be productive, but does he really represent the BEST value for a team's salary-cap dollar? Even before you consider the PR nightmare that hiring him would bring down upon a team, I'd suggest that there are a whole heap of better options teams would/should be more interested in.

Put it this way: if your team had a choice between, say, Rice and Demarco Murray and they chose Rice, would you be happy?

 

[goodhandluke]

Name 10 rb better than ray rice in the nfl. Then how many that are free agents.

Hes a 1000+ yard back with a superbowl win and the ravens 2nd all time leading rusher and in rushing td's.

He will get a shot. Plaxico had gun charges and came back...

 

[OzExorcist]

*shrugs*

Here's the list of potential free agent running backs for next season:

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/running-back/

Are all of them "better" than Ray Rice? No. But there's some pretty serious names on there. And more than that, the majority of them are likely to be cheap. So in addition to finding a team that wants to deal with the PR fallout he brings, I suspect Rice would have to be willing to take a massive pay cut.

Plaxico shot himself in the leg, not exactly in the same league as punching a woman in the face on camera. Michael Vick is probably the better comparison - though Vick's saving grace was that decent QBs are in short supply so there was a bigger upside to trying to rehab his image. Running backs by comparison are a dime a dozen...

 

[goodhandluke]

Why does it matter if something is on camera

 

[OzExorcist]

Morally? It doesn't matter a damn.

But we're not really talking about morals here, we're talking public relations. And for better or worse, in PR it makes a HUGE difference that it happened on camera. Everyone and their dog (with the possible exception of Roger Goodell LOL) has actually seen Ray Rice punch his fiancee in the face. They can't un-see it, they won't forget it, and they'll probably have to see it a few more times if any team signs him, because you just know the footage will be run again in conjunction with the news stories.

It's much easier to "forgive" / forget / sweep under the rug something you never actually saw.

 

[goodhandluke]

I think what people do in their personal lives doesnt really matter to me

I see ray rice as a football player

What him and his wife do is none of my business

If he could come in for my team and give me yards im signing him

Noone will sign him yet bc it would break up chemistry be bad media etc

I think he will get signed after the draft when teams see where they stand

Theres not a lot of ppl better than him and sure there is college talent but theyre not nfl proven. Is he the number 1 rb on the market no but hes a quality rb who like you said a team can bring in for less money.

Also with ray having the year off thats less wear on his body

Like i said, id sign him. If im a team like the raiders why would you not sign him?

 

[OzExorcist]

All I can say there is that you're in the minority - for a lot of people it DOES matter what a football player does in their private lives. Or, at least, it does when what they do in their private lives is punch women in the face.

There's another aspect of signing Rice that we haven't discussed as well. Sponsors. Regardless of what you or I or anyone else might think, the NFL and its teams care a lot what its corporate sponsors think. And I promise you, sponsors care. A LOT. Don't forget it was pressure from sponsors that was largely responsible for Rice's punishment being increased and his being cut by the Ravens. A few big sponsors make a few quiet phone calls or release some carefully worded statements to the press and bam, he's indefinitely suspended and cut from his team.

You might think it's worth it to sign Rice over, say, a Knowshon Moreno for purely football reasons. But are the extra few yards he might gain over someone like that worth losing major sponsors over?

Hell, it wouldn't even necessarily need to be just a team sponsor. If a league-wide sponsor like Anheuser-Busch, Microsoft or Pepsi get in the league's ear and say they're not happy about Rice being allowed to play again, do you think for a second Roger Goodell will baulk at calling the team in question and leaning on them to cut Rice?

At the very least, Rice needs to to a ton of work rehabbing his image outside of football before a team can seriously consider playing him.

Sponsors need something to hang their hat on if they're going to support a team that signs him. They need to be able to say "yes what he did was awful and despicable but since then he's done X, Y and Z, he's donated millions of dollars to support services for victims of domestic violence, he's a 100% changed man, here's the videos and soundbites of all that stuff happening".

But Rice hasn't actually done any of that, has he? If he has, he hasn't done it publicly enough. He's made a half-arsed apology and then seemingly spent all of his time, energy and resources fighting his suspension. The fact that he was technically in the right about the NFL overstepping its authority doesn't matter. The message he's actually sending by doing that is that he's unrepentant, that he thinks punching a woman in the face really should only carry a two-game suspension. That's not an image a corporate sponsor will be happy to be attached to...

 

[motorcity1957]

of course the wife sticks by him, whatever her reason, could be that battered women syndrome, plus he was bringing home the bacon. Or she believe's he can or has changed. Who know's.
yes, that video was brutal, he knocked her out. no doubt about it. it is a crime and he should be punished. i'm just not sure that he should be treated different than you or I because of who he is, justice is blind
of course i have personal opinions
i am a Christian , so i forgive, i hope he seeks God's forgiveness, and i shall not judge

 

[goodhandluke]

Ray rice doesnt need to apologize to anybody but his woman.

Saying he needs to apologize to play football is a snarky comment imo

What does ray rice owe you or anyone else, hes a champion, give him some respect

We dont even know him, he might be a nice guy

I dont support abusive behavior but everyone makes mistakes and like i said personal lives have nothing to do with football or sports.

 

[Marcwantstowin]

Ray rice doesnt need to apologize to anybody but his woman.

Saying he needs to apologize to play football is a snarky comment imo

What does ray rice owe you or anyone else, hes a champion, give him some respect

We dont even know him, he might be a nice guy

I dont support abusive behavior but everyone makes mistakes and like i said personal lives have nothing to do with football or sports.

Got to say I totally agree with Luke. The position people are put in because of their "sports star" celebrity is ridculous.

Another example here in the Uk was when we had an England football Captain who apparently had an affair with another players girlfriend. It turned out that it had happened 18 months earlier and at the time she was the players "Ex-" girlfriend. The England captains wife knew about it and they had attended marriage guidance. When it turned out to be a load of rubbish........they all forgot about it but the damage was done. Now this player, who is not England player anymore, cannot scratch his arse without people looking for a story to print. I defo thnk that people should be treated equally whoever they are!! Gl all....

 

[duggs]

agree with Oz

 

[OzExorcist]

Ray rice doesnt need to apologize to anybody but his woman.

Saying he needs to apologize to play football is a snarky comment imo

What does ray rice owe you or anyone else, hes a champion, give him some respect

We dont even know him, he might be a nice guy

I dont support abusive behavior but everyone makes mistakes and like i said personal lives have nothing to do with football or sports.

*le sigh*

I don't care if it's snarky, it's the truth.

And you're still missing my point - he doesn't need to apologise just so he can play football. Technically he could play football right now couldn't he, if a team was willing to take him? But therein lies the rub, he does need to apologise (and likely a lot more besides) so he can play football without the team's/league's sponsors walking out the door and taking their dump trucks full of cash with them. DUCY?

You might be willing to overlook what he's done just because he might gain your team a few hundred extra yards on the season, or because what players do off the field should have "nothing to do with football".

But there were thousands of people at M&T Bank Stadium last September, so desperate to get rid of their Ray Rice jerseys that they were willing to stand around in a long-ass line for hours, that prove a lot of fans are NOT willing to overlook it.

You might not agree with them, but those fans exist. The ones who turned out that day were just the Baltimore fans who had enough time free to go stand in that line. Others just cut to the chase and burned their Rice jerseys.

And those were just the Baltimore fans. I promise you, every team has a large portion of its fanbase who would revolt in a similar manner if they signed Rice. That's why the Panthers deactivated Greg Hardy, and the Vikings deactivated Adrian Peterson.

And that's before you worry about the sponsors, the league, and even the portion of the general public that doesn't actually care about football, but will still speak up and put pressure on both the league and its sponsors if it's seen to be supporting a seemingly-unrepentant wifebeater.

That's why he has to do a ton of work rehabbing his image. You can argue until you're blue in the face about whether it's fair, or that it's only his on-field performance that should count, but that's not the world we live in. This stuff matters - to other fans, to sponsors, to the league and to the public, and any team considering taking Ray Rice on has to take all that into account.