Ravens Leaders on Ray Rice Case: 'We All Failed'

Baltimore Ravens management maintained in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that they never saw the video of Ray Rice striking his then-fiancee until it was released this week, and acknowledged the team bungled its handling of the incident.

Three top managers told the newspaper they handled the situation poorly and vowed to do a better job on investigating legal issues involving Baltimore Ravens players in the future.

Owner Steve Bisciotti said he hopes that Rice gets another chance to play in the NFL, but it won’t be with the Ravens.

“We all failed,” Bisciotti told the Sun. “I was kept abreast of every little thing that we were doing here.”

TMZ’s release on Monday of a surveillance video from inside an Atlantic City casino elevator that showed Rice knocking Janay Palmer Rice unconscious sparked outrage, leading to Rice’s firing from the Ravens and an indefinite suspension by the NFL.

While the team’s managers said they didn’t see the entire assault on video until this week, what was shown matched what Rice told them happened in February.

“What we saw on the video was what Ray said,” General Manger Ozzie Newsome told the newspaper. “Ray didn’t lie to me. He didn’t lie to me.”

Reaction from current and former players this week has been mostly one of disappointment.

Running back Justin Forsett told the Sun it was “tough seeing and watching that video. I’m not going to abandon him now. I’m going to be a friend and help him in his growth and development. But I’m definitely ashamed watching that.”

Former Ravens great Ray Lewis Ray Lewis said on ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown” that he was disappointed in Rice’s actions, reports The Washington Post.

“I’m disappointed,” Lewis said. “I’m torn because this is a young man I really took up under my wing and tried to mentor to make sure he had a successful career and stayed away from things like this. Wrong is wrong, but you have to figure out how to stop people from getting involved in wrong and that’s what good teams have done.”

Former Raven and Titans tackle Michael Oher, whose locker was next to Rice’s in Baltimore, said, “If my daughter was to get hit like that from another man, I’d have a serious problem with it,” reports Newsday. “So I wish him the best, but it’s no place for that. I don’t care if you’re a football player, a professional athlete or anything, a regular man or anything, there’s no place for that -- striking a woman.”

And Coach Kyle Flood of Rutgers University, where Rice played in college, said, “This is a sad day. Ray will always be a part of our family. The video I saw this morning was difficult to watch. As a husband and as a father, there’s nothing that could justify what I saw on that video.”