Ray Rice

Dean Akeel

Professor Freeman

Writing 150

10/8/14

This past week, there has been a lot of controversy over Ray Rice and his crime that he committed involving domestic violence towards his girlfriend, now wife. Previously, Ray Rice was issued a two game suspension from the National Football League (NFL). Recently, a video was released by an unknown source of Rice hitting his wife. After the video was released, Rice was given an indefinite ban from the NFL. The author of the article “Why the NFL's Indefinite Ban Of Ray Rice Won't Stand”, Marc Edelman, is a law professor at Zicklin School of Business in New York and he specializes in rules and regulations within the NCAA and professional leagues. Edelman defends Rice’s situation explaining rules against him being punished for the same crime twice. The article is directed towards the NFL commissioner defending Rice, and to the Baltimore Ravens front office explaining to them why he should not be punished by the team as well. A secondary audience, in which this article is pointed to or useful for, is Baltimore Raven fans, or any fan of Rice worrying about his situation and wanting answers. The author’s message is successful because he uses valid arguments from the handbook using the NFL’s own rules against them which they cannot disobey. Kairos is used in the article because Edelman published it right after Rice was punished for the second time for the same offense.

The message behind the article, “Why the NFL's Indefinite Ban Of Ray Rice Won't Stand”, has a strong message that the NFL cannot ignore. It explains the fact that they already punished Ray Rice for his crime, and in the rule book, it states that no one can be punished for a crime they committed if they have already been penalized once for it. “ The problem with the NFL’s attempt to indefinitely ban Ray Rice under Article 46(1)(a) is that Commissioner Goodell previously had suspended Rice for two games under this same article of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, making the subsequent punishment both repetitive and untimely” (1 Edelman). As stated, Rice was already banned for 2 games previously, which closes the door for another punishment.

The next point the author gets to is the NFL’s own internal policies and previous punishments for domestic violence. Under the last NFL commissioner, players were suspended two games. Commissioner Goodell, in august, stated that he would punish players for 6 games for domestic violence. “Not only does an indefinite suspension go against the past “sentencing guidelines” of Commissioner Tagliabue, but it even goes against the far more recent memorandum issued by Commissioner Goodell just last month on the topic” (1 Edelman). Here, the author exposes the commissioner by repeating his own words over the issue of domestic violence, which Ray Rice is charged with. The author brings up the rules of the last NFL commissioner to show how severe Commissioner Goodell’s original punishment was of a six game suspension, but now going back on his word and making it worse with a ban from the NFL towards Rice.