An investigation into the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case found no evidence that the NFL and, specifically, commissioner Roger Goodell had knowledge of security footage that showed Rice punching his then-fiancee in a hotel elevator last February. But even though the league didn’t know about the video, the report concluded, it should have done more to investigate the case to determine what happened.
The “independent” investigation conducted by former FBI director Robert Mueller, whose law firm has past connections to the NFL, stemmed from a September Associated Press report that law enforcement officials sent the video to the NFL in April 2014. Goodell had suspended Rice for two games in July, a decision that drew criticism at the time but turned into a full-blown scandal when the second video came out a month later. The AP report contradicted Goodell’s claims that no NFL officials were aware of the video, and Mueller’s investigation backs him up.
“We found no evidence that anyone at the NFL had or saw the in-elevator video before it was publicly shown,” Mueller said in a press release summarizing the report. “We also found no evidence that a woman at the NFL acknowledged receipt of that video in a voicemail message on April 9, 2014.”
The report was critical of the NFL in that it found that the league did not do enough to find out what happened in the Rice case. The NFL it said, did not contact police involved in the incident or the Atlantic City prosecutor; nor did it follow up with Rice and his attorneys or the Ravens. Still, the information the NFL had “ should have put the League on notice that a serious assault had occurred and that it should conduct a more substantial independent investigation,” the report said.
“We concluded there was substantial information about the incident — even without the in-elevator video — indicating the need for a more thorough investigation,” Mueller also said. “The NFL should have done more with the information it had, and should have taken additional steps to obtain all available information about the February 15 incident.”
But if the crux of the report — that the NFL didn’t know about the video and should have done more — sounds familiar, it is because the conclusion of the investigation largely mirrors the one the NFL and Goodell reached months ago on their own and have repeated since. While Goodell has maintained that NFL officials were not aware of the tape, he has admitted that he “didn’t get it right” and that he and his league “have to do better” in the future. He even released a new personal conduct policy meant to demonstrate how they would avoid the mistakes that resulted from their handling of the February incident.
This report has already spawned calls from some anti-domestic violence groups for Goodell’s resignation. But it also could be easy for the part about Goodell not seeing the video to be seen by some as an exoneration of some sort, proof that while Goodell certainly didn’t handle this case correctly, he wasn’t lying about the video. It shouldn’t be. Whether Goodell saw the video was important in the discussion about his job status, sure. But beyond that, the major question posed by the report — “did Goodell, any of his senior staff, or any other person at the League receive or view a video of the Rice incident inside an elevator at the Revel, prior to September 8?” — was less significant.
Goodell didn’t flub this case because he did or didn’t lie about the video, or because he did or didn’t see it. Police reports described the incident. Rice told Goodell he punched his fiancee. Another video showed the running back dragging her, unconscious, out of the elevator. Goodell shouldn’t have needed to see the video to understand what happened in that elevator. Apparently, he did.
Goodell’s inability to recognize the gravity of this case before the video became public and his hapless attempts to redeem himself and his league once it did was always the problem with the Rice case. As a result, the last six months gave us a non-stop public relations effort to “fix” that mistake, to shore up Goodell’s status with owners and the league’s image with the public it relies on, and to show us that Goodell recognizes his errors and is serious about fixing them. This investigation, even if independent, was never more than an attempt to lend official credence and authority to that effort.