NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sat down for a candid interview about the Ray Rice domestic incident on Tuesday. After a video was uncovered by TMZ showing the public Rice brutally beating his then fiancé, Janay Palmer, Rice’s contract with the Ravens was immediately terminated and Goodell suspended him indefinitely from the NFL.
Many have called for Rice to be permanently banned from the game of football because of his actions, but this might not be the case. In fact, Goodell spoke in his CBS interview that he doesn’t completely rule out the possibility that Rice could one day play again for an NFL team.
Goodell left open the possibility that Rice could return to the NFL, saying he won’t “rule that out” but said the league has to be confident that Rice has paid the price and “addressed this issue clearly.”
The NFL has been known in the past to forgive players who were once looked at as heinous criminals. Jets QB Michael Vick spent time in prison for the dog fighting and murdering dogs, but once the NFL felt Vick had satisfied his debt to society, he was welcomed back to the league. Of course, the major difference between the Vick case and Ray Rice’s case is that the public has now seen video evidence of Rice’s actions. Sometimes hard evidence is a lot harder to swallow than what is left up to the imagination.
The main issue if Rice were to ever be reinstated is how female NFL fans would feel about such a decision. PETA supporters have spoken against Michael Vick’s rise back to fame. The backlash the NFL could possibly receive for such a decision remains to be seen if Goodell is being honest in his assessment that Rice may be welcomed back to the league one day.
[h/t ESPN]