Eagles center Jason Kelce has offered perhaps the strongest criticism yet from an NFL player about the league’s handling of the Ray Rice case.
“If they would have just came out and said, ‘You know what we had a wrong—we made a wrong decision. We should have suspended him for longer. This is something that we mishandled,’” Kelce told 94 WIP, “I would have had a lot more respect for the NFL than what they’re doing now, which seems like they are just backtracking and trying to save face in front of the fans and it’s clear as day, I think to me, they’re lying and misleading people.”
Kelce believes that the NFL is either lying about not seeing the tape of Rice punching his wife, or lying about why it chose to turn a blind eye to that tape.
“I mean, the whole thing has been just really mishandled,” Kelce said. “And then, now all the sudden with tape coming out—I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that an organization with billions of dollars and this tape is running out there through law enforcement and through media outlets that they somehow couldn’t get their hands on the tape. They’re saying that they couldn’t get the tape, I don’t know if I believe that. They made a mistake by only suspending him for two games.”
That’s a case the NFL is paying for in the court of public opinion. Paying a higher price than Rice had to pay in the court of law.
