As was expected, Ray Rice is appealing his indefinite suspension following the September 8 release of the inside-elevator footage of him knocking out his fiancée with a vicious punch. It appears that one of Rice's central arguments will be that Roger Goodell's decision to suspend Rice indefinitely was flawed, because it was made based on a videotape that was heavily edited.
Rice will contend that the “cleaned up” and compressed footage did not depict events as they truly unfolded. But, um, that wasn’t really the point of the suspension, was it? Rice wasn’t banned because the footage showed everything happening quickly; he was banned because he knocked his fiancée unconscious.
Just because the TMZ footage had been made a little more clear doesn’t change the actual events on the tape. Obviously the NFLPA is just trying to do its job, but this is an embarrassingly bad argument.
[via ESPN]
