Did John Harbaugh want to get rid of Ray Rice in February? (USATSI)
Former Ravens running back Ray Rice was cut by the team on Sept. 8 after TMZ released a video of Rice punching and knocking out his wife in an elevator. As it turns out, Rice was almost cut well before that, according to a report from ESPN's Outside the Lines.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh wanted the team to dump Rice in February after TMZ released the first video, which showed Rice dragging his unconscious wife out of the elevator.
Harbaugh was "horrified" by what he saw on the video and wanted to cut Rice right away, four sources told OTL. However, Harbaugh was overruled by owner Steve Bisciotti, team president Dick Cass and general manager Ozzie Newsome. The higher ups in the Ravens organization decided to hold on to Rice.
After the team decided that it would continue to employ Rice, Harbaugh met with the media on Feb. 21 and said the following: "There are a lot of facts and a process that has to be worked through in anything like this. There are a lot of question marks. But Ray's character -- you guys know his character -- so you start with that."
The Ravens ran into another problem on March 9, when backup offensive lineman Jah Reid was arrested and charged with two counts of battery. At that point, Harbaugh wanted to dump Reid, Rice and Deonte Thompson, another Ravens player who had been arrested.
However, Harbaugh was once again overruled. According to OTL, Newsome felt like the Ravens could get through all the arrests, considering the franchise had already made it through serious legal matters involving Ray Lewis and Jamal Lewis in the early 2000s.
On Friday, the Ravens denied that Harbaugh wanted to cut Rice before Sept. 8.
"John Harbaugh did not want to release Ray Rice until he saw the second video on September 8 for the first time. The video changed everything for all of us," the team said in a statement.
However, Baltimore executives reportedly knew details of Rice's entire domestic violence incident in an Atlantic City casino way back in February, and Cass reportedly received a full description of the incident from Rice's lawyer in April.
The Ravens issued a statement Friday night in response to the ESPN story:
The ESPN.com "Outside the Lines" article contains numerous errors, inaccuracies, false assumptions and, perhaps, misunderstandings. The Ravens will address all of these next week in Baltimore after our trip to Cleveland for Sunday's game against the Browns.
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