Report: Ravens brass never requested video; GM: 'What we saw on the video was what Ray said'

The top officials for the Baltimore Ravens sat down with The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday to make their first public comments since video of Ray Rice allegedly assaulting his then-fiancee Janay Palmer was released by TMZ.

Owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass, and general manager Ozzie Newsome admitted a failure on their part in the handling of the situation, and insist they will be more diligent in investigating legal matters involving their players in the future.

According to a report by ABC News, Rice's lawyer had a copy of the video, but the Ravens never asked to see it. The video in question shows Rice striking Palmer, knocking her unconscious in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino.

That report goes on to say that Atlantic City police reported "almost immediately" that Rice's assault knocked out Palmer, and that he committed the assault "by striking her with his hand, rendering her unconscious."

“We all failed. I was kept abreast of every little thing that we were doing here,” Bisciotti said.

TMZ released the video Monday, and the team immediately released Rice, a three-time Pro Bowl running back.

According to Cass, the team did make efforts to obtain the video, contacting the casino, the prosecutor's office, and the New Jersey state police. He also said a request to have a member of the team's security staff go to the casino to view the video was denied.

Bisciotti said he hopes to see Rice get a chance at resuming his NFL career, but it won't be with the Ravens. He knows that the incident has hurt the team's reputation, and the team will have to work to regain the trust of its fans.

“I’m very concerned,” Bisciotti said. “We are always concerned. Our reputation is part of what we sell. We strive to be a respected organization. Any time you have negative publicity, it hurts your brand.”

Cass explained why the team did not release Rice when initial reports indicated he had struck Palmer:

There was no discussion. When it’s a player misconduict, there’s a protocol that the league has followed for over 20 years now. And the protocol basically is the team involved generally collects information about the incident. But if it’s a criminal misconduct issue, there’s no discipline generally imposed until the criminal proceeding is finished. That’s the protocol that we followed in this case as well. We collected information as best as we could but we really were waiting until the criminal proceeding was over to decide what to do. There would have been no precedent that I’m aware of where you’d take an established player – a player who had been with you for six years, had been a model citizen, a terrific player, had built up enormous good will in this building and in this community – to terminate a player when he had been charged with simple assault.

Interestingly enough, the team did acknowledge that what they saw on the video matched Rice's account of the incident:

Ozzie Newsome: "You know. Ray had given a story to John [Harbaugh] and I. And what we saw on the video was what Ray said. Ray didn’t lie to me. He didn’t lie to me.”

Dick Cass: “There’s a big difference between reading a report that says he knocked her unconscious or being told that someone had slapped someone and that she had hit her head. That is one version of the facts. That’s what we understood to be the case. When you see the video, it just looks very different than what we understood the facts to be.”

Newsome also commented on his expectations for Rice's future, on and off the field:

I think today and for the near future, Ray is going to be working on Ray. I don’t think playing football right now is important to him based on our conversation. He’s working on himself, Janay and their daughter and trying to make the best of that.