No Good or Evil on the Scoreboard. Ray Rice Won’t Work in the NFL Again — Until Somebody Needs Him
Independent arbitrator Barbara Jones ruled last Friday that Ray Rice’s second suspension was a violation of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, making Rice immediately eligible to return to work as a running back. As a free agent, Rice could be employed by any of the league’s 32 teams. As of this morning, there have been no takers.
The apparent lack of interest in Rice’s services could be because all 32 teams are repulsed by Rice’s crime of domestic violence against his wife Janay and don’t care to have a person capable of such cruelty on their payrolls. Santa could be bringing a Ferrari down my chimney later this month, too. The unofficial over/under on the number of such franchises is three. There doubtless are other teams leery of the baggage cars full of negative publicity and “distractions’’ Rice would bring to their operations during the December stretch run, maybe a half-dozen or more.
That leaves roughly two-thirds to three-fourths of NFL teams who have yet to sign Rice for the same reason they don’t give contracts to countless other football players whatever kind of person they are. The teams don’t think Rice can help them.
Running backs wear out fast in the NFL. Rice is only 27, but he’s already been tackled almost 2000 times in his career. He had career low total as a starter of 660 yards rushing in 2013, averaging a dismal 3.1 yards an attempt. Had Rice never committed his crime, it’s quite possible he’d have been riding the pine for the Ravens yesterday as Justin Forsett carried the mail.
Rice is also not in “football shape,’’ the NFL euphemism for “ready for all the pain.’’ The rough estimate is that such shape requires up to a month of formal practice. The 2014 regular season has 28 days left. Only a team counting on a playoff berth could afford the luxury of hiring Rice now. It has been reported that Rice himself would prefer to return for the 2015 season, when he will be of less interest to “Inside Edition’’ and more importantly will have more potential employers.
So Ray Rice’s NFL future is strictly a business proposition. Ethics are not in the picture. I can’t prove it, but I’m certain that if Jones had overturned Adrian Peterson’s suspension last Friday afternoon, Peterson would have been back at some team’s meetings by Saturday morning. He’s a Hall of Fame candidate. He can help you win.
Don’t think for a second I am criticizing NFL teams for heartless amorality. When some team gives Rice his “second chance’’ it will merely be serving the confused and contradictory beliefs of all sports fans around the globe. Fans, commentators and weirdest of all athletes themselves want to and do associate performance in sports with performance in human life, but it’s the former that comes first. We believe that sports build character and that the One Great Scorer marks how we played the game. We also believe that nice guys finish last.
This leads to the phenomenon I call scoreboard morality. Athletes screw up their lives at the same rate as other young people. Some of those screw-ups are horrible criminal acts. We judge their subsequent return to society not by their performance as humans, but by how they play,
Kobe Bryant was charged with rape. The charges were dropped. Years later, Bryant is the grand old man of the NBA, because he never stopped being a great player. Michael Vick served prison time for despicable acts of animal cruelty. Vick got hot during the 2010 season for the Eagles, and more than one fan and commentator said that indicated he had truly repented for his crimes and become a new and better person.
Works the other way, too. Tiger Woods isn’t ridiculed in a golf magazine because he broke his marriage vows with every cheap floozy he could find. He’s ridiculed because he hasn’t won a major since 2008. That makes him a safe target.
Don’t be smug, New Englanders. The latest episode of scoreboard morality took place right here in Foxborough. In a way it’s a more telling case, since it involves a sport’s INTERNAL code of ethics.
LeGarrette Blount was cut by the Steelers for football’s most mortal sin – quitting on his team during a game. Less than 48 hours later, the Patriots signed him, and everyone interested in the Pats, including this website, hailed it as a good move. Blount can help the Pats. He may be a quitter, but he’s our quitter.
Domestic violence is horrible, but if some team gives Rice his second chance it’s OK by me. Let the law and the courts deal with athletes’ crimes. For reasons both practical and moral, our society makes the second chance a matter of sound public policy.
Sports are not a mirror on the soul. The qualities needed to succeed at games are a very tiny slice of what makes up a good, bad or in between person. Judging an athlete’s state of virtue by his yards per catch, ERA or ability to make putts is not far removed from medieval witchcraft trials.
The NFL leaves specious moral judgments to its commissioner. Finding the business of winning complicated enough, owners, GMs and coaches will evaluate Ray Rice as a running back, not as a man.
If and when Rice takes the field again, so should the rest of us.
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