Is The Ray Rice Video Fallout A Tipping Point For Teflon NFL?

The NFL has endured a myriad of issues in recent years that threatened to bring down Americas Game. Players reached unprecedented levels of strength and speed in part with the help of performance-enhancing drugs. There are suspensions, including the occasional Pro Bowler like Von Miller and Brian Cushing, but mostly America yawns and demands more violence. Baseball PED use on the other hand is apparently a reprehensible crime against society. There has been a rash of suicides by former NFL players with many traced to brain injuries. Nine out of ten retired NFL players face physical problems, and the concussion epidemic threatens to keep kids off the football field. No worries says most of the public.

Players pop up on police blotters for assault, marijuana possession, DUI and everything else under the sun (check this database of NFL player crimes). Pittsburgh Steelers running back, LeVeon Bell, recently lamented: I didnt know you could get a DUI for being high. Through it all, the NFL reinvents itself every year and produces record TV ratings and sky-high franchise values. The average NFL franchise is worth $1.43 billion with the Dallas Cowboys on top at $3.2 billion.

Ray Rice has likely played his last NFL game.

But now the Teflon league may have met its match with Ray Rice after a video was released by TMZ of the former Baltimore Ravens running back punching his then fiance, now wife, Janay Palmer, in February in an elevator at the now shuttered Revel Casino in Atlantic City. Rice was suspended a paltry two games by the NFL in July after an earlier video showed Rice dragging an unconscious Palmer out of the elevator. The latest video caused the Ravens to cut Rice and the NFL to suspend him indefinitely Monday.

We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today, according to a statement from an NFL spokesman.

After the original two-game ban, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell came under fire for the light sentence. He wrote a mea culpa letter to NFL owners, saying, I didnt get it right. He added: My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future reflect our values. The league subsequently implemented a new policy on domestic violence with a six-game ban for a first infraction and a lifetime ban for a second offense.

The NFLs new policy and the Ravens cutting Rice after strongly backing him, is too little, too late for some football fans. How did the NFL and the Ravens think that Janay Palmer was rendered unconscious in that AC elevator? Seeing the footage is something that cant be unseen. Many players and former players reacted strongly after Mondays video release byadmonishing the NFL and the original punishment. Respected NFL columnist, Peter King, previously reported the NFL saw the second video before rendering its verdict, but King backed off that claim Monday. The fallout for the NFL will get worse if it is not being straight with its fans on what it knew.

NFL die-hards let a lot slide in favor of supporting their favorite game. It is now a $10 billion business fueled by fans and companies spending wildly on tickets, sponsorships, merchandise, luxury suites and TV contracts. But has the NFL reached its zenith and is it destined for a fall? Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks so. He critiqued the league in March after the NFL announced plans to expand its TV offerings. I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion, Cuban said. Im just telling you: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And theyre getting hoggy.

Influential ESPN columnist Bill Simmons took Goodell to task this week in a 2,500-word story to kick off the season. There have been moments when Goodell made Gary Bettman look like the next Steve Jobs, Simmons wrote (that was not meant as a compliment to regular Simmons punching bag Bettman).

There is nothing set in stone that says the NFL must be Americas most popular sport. It is a non-factor outside the U.S., where soccer reigns and the NBA has the best prospects of the big four U.S. leagues. Boxing has seen huge declines over the past 50 years as people woke up to the brutality of the sport. The NFL isnt going anywhere anytime soon. The leagues bread-and-butter constituency, gamblers and fantasy players, will continue to fuel massive interest in the sport and the Super Bowl will be an unofficial holiday. In addition: it is the perfect TV sport, which is why it gets to divvy up $5 billion a year from its network partners.The Michael Vick dog-fighting incident is now merely a blip on the NFLs radar despite the outrage it caused at the time of the scandal and when Vick returned to the league after being incarcerated. PEDs, concussions and labor stoppages also werent enough to slow the NFL down.

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Is The Ray Rice Video Fallout A Tipping Point For Teflon NFL?