Sports Gone Insane Day 15: The Ravens Really Think We're Idiots, and So Does Goodell

• Well, the Ravens took their spin at PR today, with owner Steve Biscotti doing a press conference...

From the linked ESPN report:

"The majority of the sources [from the report] are people that work for Ray," Bisciotti said. "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."

Wait a minute...  Hold it a second...

Unless the intent here by Rice's camp is to completely destroy the Baltimore Ravens through an outside legal action, Mr. Biscotti (and, even then, that's debatable, given the nature of the NFL as America's most powerful corporation), what would they have to gain, especially given the history of the Ray-Ray Ravens?

Rice would be looked at as part of a criminal conspiracy to cover up the incident (on top of the incident itself), and would actually be throwing the one entity who could save him under the bus -- the underground network of NFL "fixers" who got exposed by TMZ, and doubly so by OTL...

It makes no sense.

Just before the press conference, what the report called a "lengthy rebuttal" to the OTL report was also published.  Among other things, the statement noted:

• John Harbaugh, it was reported, actually wanted to cut Rice, but was overruled.  Harbaugh denies the allegation.
• The team Director of Security has a completely different account of what occurred when he was first contacted about the incident and the tape.  One of the inconsistencies is that he said the police told him in the initial description that both parties in the video (Rice and his future wife) were intoxicated.
• Team GM Ozzie Newsome denied the level of detail in which the report alleges he and Rice went into the incident.  Newsome says Rice told him he hit Janay, and nothing further was discussed.
• One of the major allegations in the video is that the Ravens' brass tried to work the legal system to Rice's advantage for leniency (a common tactic of "fixers" in the NFL for decades).  Team owner Biscotti and team President Dick Cass deny this.

It's all bullshit.

You know why?

Anyone who actually believes this shit does not understand that there are two things that, given the circumstances, should immediately be done:

• The individuals and organizations involved should be suing the absolute hides off of ESPN and everyone they believe whom, within Ray Rice's camp, fabricated the story (what I call the "Rafael Palmeiro Principle" of "Where's the lawsuits???")
• And the NFL needs to find a new home for Monday Night Football mid-season, contracts be damned.

Why?

People forget that ESPN is the NFL's bitch!!!  Playmakers, anyone?

EDIT TO ADD:  Perhaps this is why Deadspin pointed out one of the statements from Biscotti press conference:

"As for what he expects the ultimate fallout to be in the Ravens front office? "Nobody's losing a job here," Bisciotti said. "I'm very confident about that.""

Perhaps indicating one or more parties at ESPN might be?

• Of course, this isn't the only doozy in the continuing skirmishes between ESPN and the Ravens about the Ray Rice video...

Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that a number of NFL players were sharing the video of the incident within a week or two like what the Deadspin report refers to as "like a World Star clip" -- referring to infamous YouTube clips from a hip hop site of street fights and knockouts all over the nation, leading to the completely asinine national meme of people whipping out their cell phones any time there is a fight, even at schools, anymore.

Schefter, quoted within the Tom Ley report:

"You would have to think at some point somebody here will be in trouble over this. The security guy clearly knew exactly what was going on. Leadership, management, did what it could to conceal and push it through. I think that Ray Rice's track record helped him here, that they cared about him. They wanted to believe that it was an isolated deal but they knew. There were players who were in Las Vegas a week or two after this incident and I know one player said, "You want to see the videotape of what happened?" So there were players who could see the videotape, yet the Ravens, many of the Ravens, claim they couldn't see it."

• And then there's word today that my supposition (that Goodell was able to go on the offensive on Friday because of the positive NBC News/Marist poll regarding viewing habits of football and his job) may have more credence, according to another Deadspin report.

Dave McKenna's article (of which I'm not sure if it was actually through another media source) stated that an associate of political pollster Frank Luntz said that the entire speech was right out of the playbook of whom the article referred to as, speaking about Luntz, "lord of the dark arts of political messaging".

This, really, should be no surprise.  Outside of political circles and the absolutely idiotic NFL fanbase, the press conference on Friday was so universally decried that ESPN OTL's Bob Ley tweeted this, according to McKenna:

Five hours now, reading and reading those I respect and follow, and have yet to see ONE single positive reaction to @nflcommish presser.
— Bob Ley (@BobLeyESPN) September 20, 2014

I think it's clear (and some of the numbers I've been seeing in the scores and the like indicate this) that the NFL is trying to win the propaganda war to keep the fans in line and the women beat down, but they are expending a considerable amount of energy which would otherwise be placed elsewhere on doing so.

They are winning, though, and it's regrettable they are.