It appears Ray Rice needs a public relations assistant. For many reasons.
Getting passed over for a second year while other NFL players with questionable character sign with teams, Rice has encountered an unspoken, league-wide collusion effort to keep him out of the league.
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But the disgraced running back with four 1,000-yard rushing seasons -- as well as a 2014 casino elevator video forever haunting him -- also has received criticism for his remarks in the aftermath of his incident.
He recently reiterated his message that, "There's a zero-tolerance policy (for domestic violence) and there's no place for it in society," in an interview with ESPNU via the Orlando Sentinel. "I want to let them understand that because it really came down to decision-making and that was the worst decision I've ever made.
"I want these guys to understand the severity of my decision so they never go out there and make that mistake."
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The Sentinel's George Diaz took exception with Rice's choice of the word, "mistake."
"Punching a woman in the face not a mistake," Diaz writes. "A mistake is when you run a red light or turn left instead of turning right."
Diaz goes on to quote a CEO of a domestic violence shelter, who compares abusers to racists.
"Abusers are like people who are racists," said Carol Wick, CEO at Harbor House of Central Florida, a domestic violence shelter. "That process of no longer being a racist does not involve a four-hour diversity class. It is a monumental thing. Has this person truly changed their belief system?"
While the argument is valid, it still misses the point. Rice is being held to a higher standard than other NFL players in similar circumstances simply because of the video evidence against him.
Would Michael Vick be in the league if there were a single video of him killing a dog when he was running his dog-fighting ring? The answer is "no," and Rice has done nothing to suggest that he is a candidate to be a repeat offender -- especially compared to the way Greg Hardy has responded about his own transgressions.
There are some who question whether former Rice teammate Ray Lewis was truly innocent in a double-murder tragedy at a Super Bowl party in 2000. After a year's suspension for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk, former NFL wide receiver Donte Stallworth returned to the league.
But Rice remains the most scrutinized law-breaker in the NFL.
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