Ray Rice spoke with the Today show in an interview that aired Tuesday, following up on the interview that his wife, Janay, gave to the program Monday. Rice was introspective speaking with Matt Lauer alongside Janay and her parents. The former Baltimore Ravens running back addressed his future and the ill-conceived press conference he gave following his arrest on domestic violence charges. He said that counseling helped give him new perspective since his arrest.
Ray Rice says he ‘made a horrendous mistake not apologizing to my wife’
Ray Rice discussed his future in the NFL and with his wife, Janay, in a follow-up interview on the Today show Tuesday.
Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports
“You grow up and you think you know it all,” Rice told Lauer. “I had a ceiling over my head. I was a professional athlete. That ceiling sometimes is -- you put yourself in a place where you don’t really understand where you’re going, but somebody else tells you that that’s not reality.”
Janay Rice said that the Ravens gave her “a general script” for her heavily criticized apology at a May press conference addressing the incident in Atlantic City. Lauer asked Ray Rice why he didn’t also apologize during that press conference. Rice said that he “made a horrendous mistake” not doing so.
The reason why that press conference was the way it was, was because we were still under legal situations. So there wasn’t much that could be said, but I’ll be honest, we were nervous, I was nervous, and that was the first time we were available to speak. And I made a horrendous mistake not apologizing to my wife.
We were given what to speak about. It wasn’t truly coming from us, if you can understand, but I made that clear in my last time I was able to speak that my wife is an angel. She can do no wrong. I take full responsibility for my actions.
Rice seemed unsure of his future -- “the only thing I can hope for and wish for is a second chance” -- though he was reinstated after winning an appeal of his indefinite NFL suspension last Friday. Rice has reportedly garnered some interest from NFL teams, but coming off an off-field scandal and a bad on-field 2013 season, there appears to be a good chance that Rice does not see a playing field again until 2015. Rice said that the situation has forced him to reconsider his role in his relationship with his wife.
“I knew my wife before I had anything,” Rice said. We both know where we came from. And just to be honest with you, she’s very independent. My wife can survive in this world without me. She could survive in this world in society without me. She could’ve done it on her own. The one thing I want people to understand is that she sacrificed her well-being for me. And now the role’s a little bit reversed. I would sacrifice my well-being for her.”
For now, Rice seems intent on making his way back into the NFL. To do so may require some lobbying on his part.
“[Teams] would have to be willing to, you know, look deeper into who I am and realize that me and my wife had one bad night, and I took full responsibility for it,” Rice said. “And one thing about my punishment and everything going along with anything that happened is that I’ve accepted it. I went fully forward with it.”
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