Former Ravens running back Ray Rice made his latest pitch for an NFL job in an interview with ESPN Tuesday, calling himself a rehabilitated man and saying that he wants his career to end on his own terms.
“How do I assess my NFL future? I have a lot of open faith that I’ll be able to hang ’em up the right way,” Rice said in a televised interview. “That’s what’s keeping me going, that’s what’s keeping me working. … My wife and my kid believe in me. They are pushing me harder sometimes than I can push myself. I know there’s no timeline but I want to hang them up on the field. I want to hang them up the right way.”
Rice has been out of football since he was released by the Ravens on Sept. 8, 2014, the day TMZ posted the video of him striking his wife, then his fiancee,, Janay Rice, in the elevator of an Atlantic City, N.J., casino.
Rice moved from Baltimore to Connecticut this year, and he’s been working out and preparing for the 2015 season.
However, to this point, he hasn’t been invited to try out for an NFL team, and his window to play again could be closing with training camps underway leaguewide. Several teams with perceived needs at running back have opted to go in different directions.
“I understand. That’s the thing that’s keeping me going. I understand,” Rice said in the interview. “I don’t think anybody questions Ray Rice the football player. But I understand that being an NFL player is a huge, huge responsibility. … I understand why there are maybe teams that shy away from me. I understand that because it truly is a privilege to play in the NFL. It’s a privilege to play professional sports.
“I always preach one or two bad decisions, your dream can become a nightmare. Well, I had to eat my own words. I truly lived a nightmare. There’s no set in stone whether you’re going to get a second or chance or not. But I understand my hope and my faith, and everything else that I’m doing in my life. I’m just really hopeful for a second chance.”
Rice reiterated several things that he told The Baltimore Sun during an extensive interview in February, including that at one point, he didn’t think “life was worth living.”
He maintains, however, that extensive counseling and therapy sessions since the incident have changed him. Now, he just needs an NFL team to give him a second chance.
Several Ravens officials, including general manager Ozzie Newsome and head coach John Harbaugh, have publicly expressed hope that Rice gets back in the NFL.
“Mentally, I just went through a lot and I can understand some people will probably never forgive my actions,” Rice told ESPN. “But I think that every step that I took going forward right now, over time, I want to be able to rewrite the script and tell my daughter that ‘Daddy made the worst decision of my life’ but this is what I did going forward. To the survivors of domestic violence, I understand how real it is. I’ll never take that for granted. It’s a real issue in our society. My video put the light out there if you’ve never seen what domestic violence looks like. I can understand why some people will never forgive me.”
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