Last week, ESPN's "Outside the Lines" had a pretty explosive report on the "purposeful misdirection" undertaken by the Baltimore Ravens to cover the Ray Rice assault. Among the damning allegations made in the piece, ESPN "found a pattern of misinformation and misdirection employed by the Ravens and the NFL since that February night," including who saw the video and when, who covered up for whom and how punishment for Rice was negotiated.
On Monday, the Ravens released a lengthy response to the report saying, basically, "We messed up but we are good guys come on just trust us because we are good guys."
It's a long letter, and if you feel compelled to read it, by all means, read it. Most of it comes off like a pretty hearty defense of slapping a woman with an "open hand," versus, say, punching her with your fist.
But here's where I'm at with the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens and every other team that has been or will be touched by domestic violence (which is all of them): I do not care if you are good guys or if you know you "messed up," please work with the domestic violence advocates you've brought on as staff and start implementing your prevention and education programs immediately, hire additional and more diverse experts on domestic violence to work with your organization and teams, give a shit ton of your money to domestic violence providers in your home state, then give a shit ton more of your money to domestic violence providers in other states.
Every time you want to release a statement defending yourselves, just donate $100,000 to a domestic violence service provider, whether it's hotlines or legal aide or prevention programs or education programs for young people. Then keep doing that. And doing that.
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