Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti defends team, denies withholding information about Ray Rice incident
|
Version 0 of 1. OWINGS MILLS, Md. — For Steve Bisciotti, an embattled owner in a battered sport, it all goes back to the tape. That’s where the Baltimore Ravens erred, he said. It’s where the NFL erred and it’s why the organization Bisciotti owns — so often held up as one of the league’s model franchises — finds itself still reeling, two full weeks after releasing running back Ray Rice. And why didn’t Bisciotti pursue the now-infamous elevator video that showed Rice hitting his future wife? He said Monday that he “wasn’t concerned or interested enough to demand it.” “It never crossed my mind,” he said. “I’m sorry for that. Deeply sorry.” Bisciotti appeared at a news conference Monday to defend the organization following an ESPN.com article published Friday that suggested Ravens officials haven’t been forthcoming with what they knew about the Rice incident and were methodical and devious in the way they responded to it. The owner denied any sort of cover up and said he didn’t anticipate firing any team employees. The Ravens released an eight-page statement, disputing many of ESPN’s claims and contentions, and Bisciotti met with reporters at the team’s facility, answering questions for nearly 50 minutes. The ESPN report, relying in part on several unnamed sources, suggested team officials knew more about the severity of Rice’s altercation with his then-fiancee, Janay, than it had publicly admitted. The report said the team’s director of security Darren Sanders heard a detailed description of the elevator video hours after the incident took place. In the team’s statement, Sanders said he didn’t hear a description that night but did “some days later” from an “Atlantic City police official.” “As he described it,” Sanders said, “Janay appeared to initiate the altercation, but they both spit at and struck each other, resulting in Janay falling and hitting her head against the wall railing. The officer could not tell from the video whether Ray slapped or punched her, but Ray told me very clearly that he did not punch her.” Seated on a tall chair with TV lights on either side of him, Bisciotti appeared in the same auditorium Monday where Rice and his new bride addressed reporters nearly seven months ago. Bisciotti was defensive at times and direct at others Monday, saying repeatedly he regretted his own response to the news that his running back had been involved in a domestic violence incident. Bisciotti said he believed the ESPN account was based largely on associates of Rice, including the player’s agent and lawyer, who were trying to lay the groundwork for Rice’s appeal. The NFL has suspended the sixth-year running back indefinitely. “What his lawyer is forcing him to do to prepare for this thing, I’m not holding against him,” Bisciotti said. “. . . He’s getting advice that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I’m not going to hold that against Ray.” Rice’s attorney, Michael Diamondstein, declined to comment Monday evening. Todd France, Rice’s agent, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Most of Bisciotti’s meeting with reporters Monday focused on the finer points of the ESPN report. While team officials had said Rice wasn’t forthcoming with details of the incident, Ravens General Manager Ozzie Newsome had said in an interview with the Baltimore Sun, “Ray didn’t lie to me.” Newsome was not available at Monday’s news conference but said in the team’s lengthy statement that while Rice admitted to hitting Janay, Newsome didn’t press for details. “I later said Ray didn’t lie to me because he told me he hit her and that is what the video later showed,” Newsome said in the statement, “although the video was much more violent than what I pictured.” In the statement, Ravens Coach John Harbaugh also disputed the article’s assertion that he pushed for the team to cut Rice prior to TMZ releasing the video. Bisciotti said team officials did not try to assert any influence on the league while Commissioner Roger Goodell considered Rice’s fate in the spring. He said that he and Goodell are not as chummy as the ESPN article purported, saying the two had shared a single round of golf and just one dinner in recent years. “One time I saw Roger at the NFL meetings and said, ‘Where are we with this?’” Bisciotti said. “He said, ‘Nowhere until the police investigation is concluded.’ That’s the extent of what I did at that time.” Bisciotti made available what he says are the full contents of a text message exchange he had with Rice after the team released him on Sept. 8 and said he’d be willing to welcome Rice back to the Ravens organization someday. He made clear, though, Rice would never play for the team again. While Bisciotti expressed frustration that the league office also failed to secure the elevator footage, he did offer a defense of Goodell, who has faced mounting public scrutiny in recent days. “I think what we’re seeing is that the league never elevated domestic violence to the platform that it should have been on, relative to some of these other offenses: bar fights, marijuana possessions, and things like that,” Bisciotti said. “So no, I haven’t lost faith in Roger. This is [as] good a chance in this league as any — I really believe, that, like Roger said the other day, sports is an avenue, sports is a vehicle for change.” “The question is . . . what are we going to do next year as a team and what is the league going to do the next year or the next time this happens? I would lose faith in the league if this happened next year and their response is unsatisfactory. If I’m asking people to give me another shot, then I’m certainly asking you to give the league office another shot.” |