As far as press conferences for apologizing about off-field incidents go, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice may have given us all a new low standard to compare future press conferences to.
.@RayRice27, sitting with his wife, speaks to the media. #Ravens pic.twitter.com/Ya9dvC4svm
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 23, 2014
Shortly after it was announced earlier this week that Rice was accepted into a pretrial diversion program instead of facing third-degree assault charges with intent to inflict bodily harm, Rice was giving a press conference with his alleged victim in the case.
It did not go well.
Here are some goodies from the press conference, which wrapped up just a little while ago.
Rice: "Failure is not getting knocked down. It's not getting up." Maybe not the best choice of words.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) May 23, 2014
Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller makes a valid point.
Ray, fire your publicist. RT @TomPelissero: Rice: "Failure is not getting knocked down. It's not getting up."
— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) May 23, 2014
Rice continued…
I’m still the guy you know. . . .I wish me and Janay could take back 30 seconds of our life.
His wife, Janay, then took victim blaming to a whole new level by laying some of the blame for the incident on herself.
I do deeply regret the role that I played in the incident that night. But I can tell say that I am happy that we continue to work through it together, and we are continuing to strengthen our relationship and our marriage … and working to being better parents for Ravyn and continuing to be role models.
And then you have the Ravens official Twitter feed…
https://twitter.com/draglikepull/status/469925284440182785
Rice and the Ravens surely didn’t do themselves any favors here.
Photo: BaltimoreRavens.com