PHOENIX -- In a league of second chances, at a time when Greg Hardy, who faced heinous domestic violence allegations, just signed with a new team before the NFL had even meted out its full discipline on him, Ray Rice remains a pariah. The former Pro Bowl running back can't get a phone call to invite him to a tryout, let alone a contract offer. His football future looks beyond bleak.
The degree of justice in that scenario is an individual calculation. Many, having viewed the brutal video of Rice viciously striking his now-wife in a casino elevator, will wish eternal scorn upon him, will want him banished from the game for life, will view these career ramifications as just. Others, looking at his incident through the prism of a league in which morality and equity have long been handled on a sliding scale, might wonder if the apparent blackballing of Rice fits the crime.
Lest we forget, NFL teams have been willing to welcome back with open arms players convicted of serious crimes – whether it be vehicular manslaughter or repeated drunk driving or spousal abuse or taking part in a dog-fighting ring.
Regardless, at a time when Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league remain very much in the national spotlight concerning the personal conduct policy and subsequent penalties for those who run afoul of it, it was difficult to look around the ballroom at the Arizona Biltmore resort Tuesday morning, with each of the 16 AFC coaches holding court, and not consider Rice's predicament.
Rooting for Rice
Of the group assembled, quite a few know Rice well, have been on teams with him, have gotten to know him at least on some level for years coaching against him. His longtime former head coach, John Harbaugh, sat one table from Rice's last NFL offensive coordinator, Broncos coach Gary Kubiak. On the other side of Harbaugh was Buffalo head coach Rex Ryan, who was on Harbaugh's staff in 2008, Rice's rookie season, as was Browns head coach Mike Pettine, sitting a few tables away. Colts coach Chuck Pagano formed a strong bond with Rice during his time with him in Baltimore, while Bengals coach Marvin Lewis has an offensive coordinator, Hue Jackson, who coached Rice as well in Baltimore.
All of them speak very highly of the Ray Rice they know, and have nothing but glowing interactions with him to recount. Many of these men remain in contact with the running back on at least a quasi-regular basis, and, from what I gather, some of them, if the decision was theirs and theirs alone, would give Rice another opportunity.
But a transaction of this magnitude is frankly above even their considerable pay grade. It will take everyone from an owner and his wife and family on down for Rice to ever be granted a chance to play professional football again, and that day might never come. Rice maintains some strong support among the coaching community, though that alone might not be nearly enough to overcome the difficulty of landing a contract as a 28-year-old seen a declining asset at a position that is increasingly viewed as interchangeable, who struggled mightily the last time in uniform (the 2013 season) and who bears a ubiquitous scarlet letter from a video that has become infamous worldwide.
"Nothing really surprises me anymore in the National Football League," said Pagano when asked his reaction to the fact that Rice can't get a look-see at a workout now four months after he won an appeal granting his reinstatement which lifted his indefinite suspension. "All I can speak to is the four years I've spent with Ray, and I've said it before and I'm on record as saying it -- he's a great young man and he was a great player for us (in Baltimore), and he made a bad choice and he's paid for that. And with choices come consequences, and you understand that. But everybody deserves a second chance, and I hope and pray that Ray gets an opportunity, because I know there's still gas left in the tank, so to speak, and if somebody gives him that opportunity, I know he'll make them proud, and I know he'll make good on that opportunity."
Despite a poor 2013 season, Kubiak was very much planning on Rice being a key cog in his offense last season. Rice was trimmed down and very impressive throughout the lead up to the 2014 season, and the Ravens, to a fault, were unwavering in their support of Rice while his case was going through the legal system and ultimately resolved. Everything changed, perhaps permanently, when TMZ obtained and published the elevator video, with the Ravens swiftly terminating Rice's contract and the league suspending him indefinitely on the same afternoon, within hours.
Since late November, Rice has been eligible for teams to sign. No one has worked him out, yet even today the Bears are reportedly set to sign defensive lineman Ray McDonald, who was released by the 49ers after twice being accused of domestic abuse in a four-month span.
"Those aren't my decisions to make," said Kubiak, formerly head coach in Houston who is entering his first season in that capacity for the Broncos. "All I can tell you is I was around Ray throughout the (2014) offseason and through a brief period in training camp, and he works extremely hard. I know it was very important for him to come back and play well coming off the year before I got to Baltimore (2013), and he gave me and his teammates everything he had. I've talked to Ray a couple of times, and I know he's working his tail off for another opportunity, and we'll see, but that's not my place."
It ultimately probably isn't any coach's place. The baggage that Rice brings would come to bear on the entire organization, at least for some period of time. Then, it might gradually dissipate if not largely fade away, as so often these things go.
Perhaps, over time, Rice isn't viewed as quite so toxic, but even now, in the new age of supposed NFL enlightenment in regards to issues of domestic abuse, Hardy, albeit a dominant pass rusher still very much in his prime, earned the right to make as much as $13M this season in Dallas despite being found guilty of assault in a bench trial (he later settled with the accuser).
As Kubiak noted, it's not as if these kinds of difficult decisions, about troubled players, aren't made on a yearly basis by numerous NFL teams, and it's not as if second-chances are not routinely bestowed.
"You do see those things happen in this league, so I'm not the one to say this is how I would do it, or how I wouldn't do it," Kubiak said. "I can only tell you for me, and my time with him, he did a helluva job. You want the best for everybody, and you want the best for him and his family, and in all my conversations with him, I know he's working his tail off toward that, and I just wish him all the best."
Pagano stays in touch with Rice, via text, and is openly rooting for him to get a chance to play again. His team had a particular need for a running back down the stretch and into their playoff run, and the thought had to cross the coach's mind, but there was never an attempt to bring him in. It would have to be an organizational decision and clearly one was made as the Colts explored other options to bolster their backfield.
"You hope the guy gets another opportunity," Pagano said. "I really hope that for Ray, because I have a ton of respect for him." Pagano said he tries to extend his support to his former player through his texts to "let him know, hey, we're keeping you in our thoughts and prayers … we're pulling for you." There is an earnest sincerity in his voice.
Rice has no playing future with the Ravens, an obvious stance ownership took as the controversy over Rice's act of violence and the team and league's response to it swirled. But Harbaugh and others in the organization have professed his support for the family in the aftermath and moving forward. As time passes from the day the tape became public, does Rice become more palatable to sign? Will an owner take a chance and give Rice another chance?
"That would probably be a great question for the other coaches in the league," Harbaugh said. "It's not for me to answer. I hope he does (get another opportunity). I still support the Rice family and Ray Rice as a friend and I want to see what's best for him."
Said Lewis, whose boss, Bengals owner Mike Brown, has a long history of taking in wayward players: "I think each team looks at its situation individually, and looks at each player individually, and I think that's why you see some players get second chances. It's just a comfort level that a club and the organization from the top on down ends up with, with the player in that situation. Because as we know, when you take these things on, there's a firestorm that often comes with it."
Ryan, in his first season coaching the Bills after a successful tenure with the Jets, quickly listed off his team's overcrowded backfield when asked about Rice's future in the league, and rightfully so, especially after adding LeSean McCoy to it via trade and bestowing a huge new contract upon him. "We're really deep at running back, so it wouldn't matter if he's out there," he said, while echoing the sentiment of the other head coaches who have worked with Rice in the past.
"I just think you root for people, and everybody makes mistakes and things like that," Ryan said. "And obviously, it was a horrible mistake. But you hope everybody's learned from it and maybe not just Ray, but everybody that has seen that (video)."
Pettine, who left Baltimore for the Jets with Ryan following Rice's rookie season, said, his interactions with Rice "were only very positive," during their time together.
Too toxic for a second chance?
Could well be that none of that is enough to get Rice back in football. And, whether that seems like karma to you, or whether that outcome seems out of step with the league's usual reaction to these issues, is, again, an individual decision. Rice, who won back more than $1.5M of his 2014 salary in a settlement, has no birthright to an NFL job, and, as the shield will always let you know, playing in this league is a privilege earned.
Whether or not you agree with the way the law handled the matter -- Rice was charged initially with assault, then had more charges added and was ultimately allowed to avoid conviction through a pre-trial intervention program that involved counseling and probation -- is another complicated individual matter.
The specter of the punch being indelibly cast in video, on the internet for perpetuity, has put it in a realm that can transcend any witness statement or judge's edict from a bench. Each time it is viewed, it lives on in a gruesome kind of way, and once absorbed the images are difficult to forget. Rice and his family live with this daily, and his playing career may have been expunged by it. Maybe, those who will vouch for Rice work for an owner who ends up signing him. Maybe he just fades deeper into the NFL abyss, never needing a helmet or shoulder pads ever again. Only time will tell.
