Technically, this is where the weekly round-up would go, but there’s only one big news story going on right now besides NFL Combine stuff. And guess what? We got some Combine stuff for you planned all next week. So there’s just Ray Rice. And if you haven’t heard what’s going on with Ray Rice, you’d be surprised to know that, in this day and age, where women empowerment is at an all time high, where, just several years ago, Hilary Clinton lost an election to now President Obama, that domestic abuse still goes on. From what the news reports have stated, apparently Ray Rice hit (uppercut) his fiancée unconscious. He immediately ran for no gain, and then fell down after the first security guard touched him. (They say ‘uppercut’, but honestly, isn’t any punch from Rice considered an uppercut?)
Now, I had thought about discussing this a few days ago as breaking news, but really, it doesn’t sound the alarms like a big trade or free agent signing. Football players get arrested all the time. But as the fast-trickle of information has flowed for the past week or so, including damning video evidence, it’s abundantly clear that the Ravens have a decision to make, and that decision will ultimately affect Ray Rice’s fantasy prospects next season. Now, you may think it’s trivial to talk about domestic violence through the lens of a fantasy team, and I would agree. But you’re on a fantasy football site, so this is kinda what we do. Plenty of others will discuss this at a serious level, so here we are, kind of caught in limbo. At the very least, we can throw some lol’s at it and try to have fun. Maybe this post will be your little Ray of sunshine. (Sorry.)
Well, what’s the fallout here? I mean, besides blaming Cam Cameron? That’s a good question. The first thing to go is probably Rice’s smugness towards his peers. But since that has nothing to do with fantasy, I can say, as alluded to above, the Ravens have really only two options:
Stand by Rice, since he’s just trying to live up to playing for the Ravens and being named Ray…
If this is their decision, the short-term will be rough. The team will face some negative waves from pretty much anyone who is against domestic violence, which, you know, should be everyone. However, if the Ravens do support him and stand by him, that doesn’t shield him from any NFL discipline, much less it being illegal to assault someone. So, there are obvious issues than just getting cut. But, fantasy-wise, he still remains in the situation where he only rushed for 660 yards and had four touchdowns. It was an already make-or-break season coming up, and this only adds to the pressure of a rebound.
Cut Rice, and not live up to being the Ravens and the Ray namesake by stabbing him instead…
This one is kind of iffy too, and would obviously be what most affects not just his fantasy outlook, but also the entire Ravens depth chart. Now, I personally doubt this will happen, as the Ravens were perfectly fine supporting Samari Rolle and Terrell Suggs during their woman-beating escapades. So I wouldn’t expect much besides a heavy PR campaign. But, let’s say he does get cut… you’d have to think teams would be interested once his legal issues were resolved. Probably before then, to be brutally honest. I mean, there are still teams reportedly interested in Aaron Hernandez when he gets released. What if he gets signed by someone like, I don’t know, the Bengals? Does that offensive line make you dream a little? It might… so we’ll have to see how the chips fall. Or, in this case, fiancée’s.
On top of that, it’ll be interesting to see how the NFL handles this. No matter what happens, you have to feel like a suspension is forthcoming. The fact that he’s never been arrested does help in that regard, but the publicity has been pretty bad.
You could label him a buy-low, but now he’s actually downgraded into a risky buy-low. Rice was already coming off a superbly derpy season, and now with the chance he could miss time… I’m just not buying at all. We’ll have to see how this develops, as the 2014 season is a long ways off, but this does not look good for what once was a dominant fantasy contributor.
I will say, after watching that video, the saddest part is where Bernard Pierce had to come in and finish her off…
