After video emerged of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancée in an elevator, many suspected that Ray Rice would never work in the NFL again. Well, those people got it wrong.
Sort of.
According to Jane McManus, a columnist for espnW.com, Ray Rice has taken part in a social responsibility video that players from all teams will see.
Rice told espnW, “We shot a video that just highlights everything that I’ve been talking about decision-making, how things happened in my life, how things unfolded. The guys get to hear it from me, how it unraveled.”
“How it unraveled” for Rice, of course, was because of a video. Had the video of Rice knocking his fiancée out never emerged, he would have continued playing in the NFL. This lends no small amount of irony to the fact that Ray Rice now makes his return to the NFL, four years later, in a video.
Since Rice left the league, he has advocated strongly against domestic violence. While cynics would contest that the reason for his advocacy stemmed more from his desire to play in the league again, and less from genuine passion about domestic violence, the fact that Rice continues to advocate, long after the time any team even would have considered signing him, strongly suggests that his advocacy is at least partially genuine.
Will his advocacy have any effect on steering players away from domestic violence? We’ll have to wait and see.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn