Birds of a feather
Ravens’ Rice & Goodell sound alike
The crisis over domestic violence by NFL players and Commissioner Roger Goodell’s admitted mishandling of the Ray Rice matter has the football executive reacting in a manner very similar to the former Ravens running back.
As recently as Thursday, Goodell was forced to deal with angry corporate partners and try to convince them his missteps will not be repeated, that he has taken steps to improve his understanding of the matter and that it won’t happen again.
“The league is saying things like, ‘We’re sorry. We’ll get it right next time. Let’s overlook this,’ ” says David Johnson, a crisiscommunications expert at Strategic Vision.
“And you can hear Rice saying the same thing about himself while apolo gizing to his wife.”
Rice was seen in a video made public earlier this month punching his wife in an Atlantic City casino elevator in July and then dragging her limp body pout into the hall.
The video sparked a national debate on domestic violence among NFL players — and Goodell’s handling of the situation.
Goodell gave Rice just a twogame suspension — which many thought was too light. It wasn’t until the video surfaced that the commish got tough.
After the video came out, Rice was fired by his team..
It didn’t help Goodell’s position when other players were hit with similar charges.
“Every infraction is going to get warped into a bigger and bigger publicrelations crisis,” Johnson says.
Had the NFL given the player an indefinite suspension then — rather than wait until a horrific second video surfaced — it would have some credibility.
“It could have said we dealt with it,” Johnson says.
That may have kept Goodell from having to resort to after the fact Ricelike actions — trying to convince NFL team owners, and the nation, that has learned from his mistakes and that it will never happen again.