When it comes to the team owners in the NFL, the only thing that matters to them are their profits so when the Ravens faced a situation where Ray Rice had knocked his now wife unconscious in a fit of domestic abuse, they needed to save their asset (not a person) and also help the salary cap hit (8 million) the team would take if Rice was suspended for the season so they turned to the abuse victim and asked her to blame the abuse on herself.
The most revelatory part of the conversation was when Janay revealed that it was the Ravens who suggested she publicly apologize for the "role she played" in her own beating, and that the team gave her and Ray a "general script" of what to say at that disastrous press conference in May.
Lauer: Did you want to be a part of that press conference?
Rice: I was ready to do anything that was going to help the situation.
Lauer: When you say, "Help the situation." Help Ray and his career?
Rice: Both. Help the way we looked in the media. Help his image. Help, obviously, his career. So they told us earlier that week that we would do the press conference, and I was fine with it.
Lauer: And did anyone at the Ravens say, "Janay, it would be really good if you issued some kind of apology."
Rice: They suggested it, yes.
Lauer: Did they come up with the wording?
Rice: No, not specifically. They basically gave us a general script.
Rice went on to say that she would have never participated in the press conference if the Ravens hadn't urged her to attend, and that she "completely understood" the public backlash to her apology.
Before the second Rice video was released, the Baltimore Ravens constantly denied any involvement in situation and vociferously defended Ray Rice's behavior, which is horrible enough, but to take advantage of a young woman and ask Janay Rice to apologize was unconscionable.
