TimTheTiger's ESPN Bombshell Has Hit

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Said they'd give Rice a job after they cut him.

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Bisciotti and Cass contend that, after the elevator doors closed that morning, they did not have a full picture of what happened until September. "It was our understanding based on Ray's account that in the course of a physical altercation between the two of them he slapped Janay with an open hand, and that she hit her head against the elevator rail or wall as she fell to the ground," the Ravens said in a statement Friday afternoon. But sources both affiliated and unaffiliated with the team tell "Outside the Lines" a different story: The Ravens' head of security, Sanders, heard a detailed description of the inside-elevator scene within hours and shared it with Ravens officials in Baltimore. Goodell has been steadfast that no one in the NFL had seen the inside-elevator video until Sept. 8, the same day the public did. Both the team and the league presumably had a copy of the police report: Ray and Janay were arrested shortly before 3 a.m. on Feb. 15 and charged with simple assault. Rice was accused of "assault by attempting to cause bodily injury to J. Palmer, specifically by striking her with his hand, rendering her unconscious, at the Revel Casino," the police report says. (Janay's charges would later be dropped.) But within hours of the elevator attack, an employee of the Ravens was describing the inside-elevator video to friends in graphic detail, telling confidants that Rice knocked out his then-fiancée with a punch and that the video was "really bad," according to a source close to a Ravens official.

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basically the Ravens saw the tape, the owner of the Ravens plead to Goodell for leniency, Goodell gave a 2 game suspension and a lot of work was seemingly done to keep the tape from going public

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But within days of his announcement, Goodell confided to someone in his inner circle that he wasn't sure he had done the right thing on the Rice suspension, according to two people familiar with the exchange. The person, who speaks with the commissioner regularly, said he came away from the conversation with the strong impression Goodell regretted that someone had talked him out of leveling a tougher penalty against Ray Rice.

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