ESPN's Outside the Lines released a report on Friday that chronicled the Ray Rice case and compiled interviews with over 20 sources to arrive at the assumption that the Baltimore Ravens attempted to cover-up Rice's actions on February 15.
In response to the report, the Baltimore Ravens scheduled a press conference on Monday at 4 p.m. during which team owner Steve Bisciotti spoke to reporters and answered questions about the article written by Don Van Natta Jr. and Kevin Van Valkenburg. Bisciotti told the press that the OTL story was "manufactured" to "build a case for reinstatement."
"The majority of the sources [from the report] are people that work for Ray," said Bisciotti, in this ESPN article. "Almost everything in there is anonymous, but it's clear from the subject matter that it's Ray's attorney, it's Ray's agent, it's Ray's friends."
Van Natta responded shortly after by appearing on ESPN and telling the network that the sources interviewed for the article were team officials, current and former league officials, NFL Players Association representatives and associates, along with advisers and friends of Rice. But a number of others within the Ravens organization have refuted aspects of the report prior to the news conference on Monday.
In the OTL report, it was said head coach John Harbaugh urged Bisciotti, team president Dick Cass and general manager Ozzie Newsome to release Rice after the release of the first video, but his request was quickly rejected. It was also alleged that the Ravens director of security received a detailed account of the incident in the elevator within hours of it happening and that Rice himself gave a detailed account to the team executives. Additionally, the report mentioned that Bisciotti and Cass lobbied for Rice to get no more than a two-game suspension and "pressured" Goodell and other league executives into making the decision.
However, Harbaugh denied he ever requested to cut Rice; the Ravens director of security denied receiving an account of the incident shorty after it happened on February 15; Newsome said no details were discussed beyond Rice saying that he hit his fiancée in the elevator; and Bisciotti and Cass denied lobbying the NFL to give Rice a lesser suspension as well as the New Jersey judicial system to go easy on him (Rice received a rare settlement in which he was entered into a pretrial intervention program and will likely avoid a jail sentence).
Unfortunately it looks like the public will never know the truth. Each camp keeps denying allegations and no one is taking sole responsibility after countless reports have revealed inconsistencies and misinformation. It's disappointing that the only person who will be punished after this whole debacle is Ray Rice.
