Presenting unified front as team but not as league
An edited transcript of the conversation between 49ers owner Jed York and KNBR’s Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey.
Murphy: Let’s start with an easy question: How's the turf?
York: It’s good. I think it held up really well for the soccer game, and I think we're ready. I keep getting asked the question, “Do you do field turf at some point?” Our feeling is that we like grass, and we want to do everything we can to make sure that the grass is here.
Murphy: OK, so now we need to ask you about Ray McDonald. This is your first public interview since Ray was arrested, so I will ask you directly: Why have you waited until now to make any statements or do any interviews?
York: Well, for me, first of all, our organization speaks as one voice. So whether it's Trent (Baalke), whether it’s Jim(Harbaugh), whether it’s me or whether it’s a statement we put out— we speak with one voice.
McCaffrey: That being said about one unanimous voice, can you explain a little bit what led to the decision to put Ray McDonald on the field in Dallas?
York: I know you’re a UCLA guy, and I like famous quotes. John Wooden talks about character and reputation. I believe very strongly in that quote, that you should care more about your character than your reputation. I amcomfortable that my reputation is going to take shots throughout this process, but my character is that I will not punish somebody until we see evidence that it should be done, or before an entire organization and legal police investigation shows us something. Whether you sit him down or not, whether he’s guilty or not, certainly we've said very clearly what our stance is on domestic violence. We’re not changing that.
Murphy: It’s a very wild time in the history of the league right now, with the NFL in the cross hairs nationally and culturally almost unlike any other time. Do you feel that Roger Goodell did his job well in handling these issues, or should the commissioner be reprimanded by the owners for damaging the league's image and bungling the Ray Rice incident?
York: I’ll say first that it was obviously acknowledged that it was bungled by the league, and they came back, and they corrected it. But we certainly need to take a very hard look at ourselves as a league and figure out a better way to do this. Even coming back to Ray McDonald— we’ve got a collective bargaining agreement in place that makes it difficult for the team to take an action, the league to take an action, etc. I think we need to set any negotiating aside, and sit down and figure out— is there a better way through collective bargaining, through everything, to look at domestic violence? And we have to understand that each case is its own separate case. Ray McDonald is not Ray Rice, and if there's another case it's not the same as any previous case. Each case is its own individual entity, and I think as a society we have a tendency to say, “You didn't do it right with Ray Rice right away, so you need to overdo it with Ray McDonald,” or whoever else it is. I don't believe that that’s the country we live in.