Ray Lewis: I’m praying for Ray Rice every night

Ray Lewis says he still talks with Ray Rice. (Getty Images)

It's been a month since the Ravens released running back Ray Rice and the league suspended him indefinitely after TMZ posted a surveillance video showing Rice punching his then-fiancee Janay Palmer in the face and knocking her unconscious in an Atlantic City hotel elevator.

At the time of Rice's release, former teammate-turned ESPN analyst Ray Lewis, who in 2000 was once charged with murder before later pleading guilty to obstruction of justice, said "there is no comparison" between the two players.

On Wednesday, Lewis told The Baltimore Sun that he has been in touch with Rice, who is appealing his indefinite suspension.

"You're talking about a friend that's in a bad, bad situation," Lewis said. "There's not one night that I don't pray for him and everybody that's going through it, and that will be that."

Two and a half weeks ago, Lewis said this of Rice's case and subsequent media reports about what the Ravens knew and when they knew it:

"Am I a little bit offended when you talk about a guy by the name of Ozzie Newsome, absolutely. Because he's one of the five-star generals in this world. And I don't want us to lose what's really going on here: Ray Rice put a lot of people at jeopardy with his actions. A lot of people. Not just himself. He needs to understand that. Because none of this happens if what happened that night on that elevator don't happen. If I ask for anything in this whole thing, I ask let there be light."

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