On Thursday the NFL unveiled a new domestic violence policy, one that will ban second offenders from the league for life. This policy came in the wake of Ravens running back Ray Rice only receiving a two-game suspension and the resulting tidal wave of (understandable) anger from all corners.
Roger Goodell admitted his mistake in meting out Rice's punishment. On Thursday Ravens coach John Harbaugh said he and the team "respect" the league's move.
"I haven't seen any of the comments or anything like that, but we respect the decisions that the commissioner has made in the past," Harbaugh said. "We said we would respect his decisions throughout this whole thing and we will respect his decisions going forward in the future."
What else can he say?
Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun reports Rice wasn't made available to the media after the preseason game, but it would be interesting to get his take on whether or not he thinks he could/should/would be banned for life from the NFL if this ever happens again.
The league isn't commenting one way or another on grandfathering people in (the Greg Hardy case is particularly at issue; what about people who ran afoul of the law via domestic violence before?) or about how they'll handle these matters moving forward (there are lots of he said, she said issues at play with every single case; will they let the courts play out, etc.).
It's a messy situation and it won't be easy to deal with these issues going forward, but the league is taking the right step in admitting it was wrong. It's no surprise whatsoever the Ravens are on board.
