Ravens Owner Steve Bisciotti, President Dick Cass and GM Ozzie Newsome yesterday acknowledged that the organization "failed in its handling of the Ray Rice investigation and now needs to rebuild trust with its fans," according to a front-page piece by Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore SUN. In their first interview since Monday’s decision to terminate Rice’s contract, they said that the team "will be more diligent in investigating legal matters involving their players going forward." Bisciotti: "I can assure you that we will not wait for other people to give us their findings in anything, especially domestic assaults. We all failed. The buck stops with me. ... We kind of heard what we wanted to hear and imagined what we wanted to imagine because we loved Ray." Ravens officials yesterday reiterated that no one in their facility "had seen the tape" of Rice striking then-fiancee Janay Palmer and added that they "had been turned away in efforts to obtain a copy of it." Cass said that the team "asked whether it could send a security official to the Atlantic City Police Department to review the tape, but that request was denied." Cass: "It serves as a wake-up call in how we handle player conduct issues in the future, particularly any issue with a player involving violence, is something that we have to do a much better job of conducting a vigorous, independent investigation of what the facts are." Newsome said that he and coach John Harbaugh "spoke to Rice shortly after his arrest, and his version of what happened matched what was on the tape." But "seeing the incident took things to an entirely different level." Newsome: "Ray didn’t lie to me." Bisciotti said that another regret was allowing Rice "to hold a news conference at the team facility in late May." Bisciotti: "In hindsight, I would have never let Janay (sit) up there" (Baltimore SUN, 9/11).
NOT WANTING TO BELIEVE THE WORST: Bisciotti also gave an interview to WBAL-NBC's Jayne Miller and described the team's reaction to the initial video released in February. He said, "The way it was described to us was that he had hit her with an open hand and that she had hit her head. We already knew that they had told the police that they had consumed an enormous amount of alcohol." He again said the way the team investigated the incident was "my fault because we love Ray." Bisciotti: "We have a tendency to hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. So the misdemeanor, the explanation that he hit her with an open hand, the fact that she was aggressive -- I was picturing her wailing on him and him smacking her and maybe her head was this far from the wall and, with her inebriation, dropped. Why did I conclude all that? Because I wanted to, because I loved him, because he had a stellar record and the cops had already seen the videos. So I assumed it wasn't a forceful blow that moved her head three feet into that wall." Miller wondered why the Ravens did not send someone to the Revel Casino to obtain the tape. Bisciotti asked, "Can you imagine that if that came out that the Baltimore Ravens had sent somebody up there to pay somebody behind-the-scenes to release something that they didn’t have the right to release as an employee of the casino?" (WBAL-NBC, 9/10).
MEET THE PRESS: The SUN's Zrebiec notes Bisciotti and Newsome were criticized "for their failure to make themselves available to answer questions" following Rice's release Monday, but Bisciotti "defended the decision." He said, "It seems to me that people thought we were shunning our responsibilities. ... So for me to say, I regret that people thought we threw John out there and we should have been the ones, I will tell you that this was so emotionally tough on us on Monday that there is no way I could have prepared to meet the press that day. There’s just no way." Bisciotti was concerned that he "would have misspoke, adding to an already difficult situation" (Baltimore SUN, 9/11). But radio host Dan Patrick said it was a "disgrace" that the Ravens sent Harbaugh "out there to talk about Ray Rice being released." Patrick: "It was so unfair to Harbaugh. The owner and GM should have been front and center” ("The Dan Patrick Show,” 9/11). Meanwhile, Newsome expects that the team will face a "period of uncertaintity with its fan base." Newsome: "No doubt, it's going to be a process. But we will accept the challenge. We will work to gain the trust of all our fans, our sponsors, our suite holders. We will do our very best. Will we be able to get 100 percent of them back? Probably not. But we will do everything in our power to try and accomplish it" (Baltimore SUN, 9/11).
MISSTEPS ALL ALONG WITH WAY: In Cleveland, Jeff Darcy writes the Ravens' handling of the Rice incident "was arguably worse" than how the NFL has handled it, "right up to the day the tape was released." The first tape "was abhorrent enough for the Ravens to take severe disciplinary action against Rice," and they could have given Rice a "team suspension on top of the slap on the wrist" that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gave him. Instead, the team "trotted out the victim and her abuser in the now-infamous joint press conference where the victim apologized while sitting next to the guy who committed a felony when he knocked her out." The Ravens followed up with a "not so subtle 'blame the victim' public relations strategy" by having Senior VP/Public & Community Relations Kevin Byrne "write and post on their website a fawning tribute letter to Rice" (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 9/11).
