Who says Ray Rice doesn't have any power? Or maybe it's NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell simply losing his.
Goodell's involvement with the Rice case in 2014 had an impact on the league's big-picture relocation project, according to ESPN's investigation of the St. Louis Rams' winning bid to move to Los Angeles, via the Baltimore Sun.
Johnny Manziel's Plight Hurting Ray Rice Case
"Nobody knew it at the time, but the league office had already lost control of the Los Angeles relocation process," ESPN's Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. write. "Commissioner Roger Goodell's mishandling of the Ray Rice domestic violence discipline in the summer and autumn of 2014 distracted him from executing the league's longtime goal of returning to L.A. and severely weakened his standing in ownership circles. Meetings about L.A. that were scheduled for September were pushed to November."
Goodell had suspended Rice for two games in July of 2014 for a domestic violence incident that took place in February. A month later, the Commissioner outlined harsher penalties for those players guilty of domestic violence issues.
St. Louis Fans Suing Rams For Fraud, Defamation
But after TMZ released the video of Rice hitting his then-fiancée Janay Palmer, Goodell changed his suspension from two games to indefinite. Later, the Associated Press reported that the video TMZ exposed had been sent to the NFL offices in April.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke, meanwhile, had secured land in Inglewood, Calif., and that, coupled with the St. Louis Convention and Visitors' Bureau's failure to maintain the Edward Jones Dome as a "first-tier" venue, which was written into the Rams lease, the team should've been given the green light to relocate on March 1, 2015.
But owners on the NFL Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities declared that the no team would be granted relocation rights in 2015, "owing, in part, to Goodell's weakened leadership," ESPN reported.
Its contract to lease the Edward Jones Dome expired, the Rams entered into a year-to-year deal with St. Louis that allowed them to remain there for 2015 and bid to leave in 2016.
Now the question is whether Rice also will return to the NFL in 2016 as the Rams have done.
For more content, follow us on Twitter @SportsWN or LIKE US on Facebook
© Copyright 2024 Sports World News, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
