In all honesty, being a die-hard Ravens fan, this is bound to be a bit biased, but I'll try to keep it as indifferent as possible.
In my opinion, the initial Ray Rice suspension was incredibly light. The NFL giving Rice a more lenient punishment than someone who fails a drug test was a bad move. I believe that he should have been slapped with something around an 8 game ban, 6 of those games being without pay. I even consider this letting him off easy. He has been a face of the NFL for over 3 years, and his work to better the community and lives in general, has earned him the benefit of the doubt.
Mind you, this was in reaction to the initial video.
With this new video emerging, this penalty would sharply increase. Hell, I probably would have taken the chance to terminate his contract as well. Rice blatantly lied to his teammates, saying that he,
"Had no choice but to defend [himself] in that elevator."
However, the indefinite ban that Goodell has now implemented on Ray is almost certainly simply a way to avoid any more bad publicity. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that nobody in the NFL had access to that video until TMZ exposed it. There was almost certainly some cover-up, and that is inexcusable. However, I've come across many NFL, ESPN, and BleacherReport articles that advocate for a mass purge of the Ravens front office, as well as the resignation of Roger Goodell. (I wouldn't be sad at all if RG stepped down.)
I find this almost laughable. Don't get me wrong, I believe that some punishment should be handed down, but if the media are advocating for a zero-tolerance policy for rule infractions such as this, then T.J Ward, Greg Hardy, Josh Morgan, Aldon Smith, Orson Charles, Chris Culliver, Jah Reid, Davone Bess, Thomas Keiser, Henry Melton, A.J Jefferson, Joe Lefeged, Adam Jones, Daryl Washington, William Moore, Amari Spievey, DaQuan Bowers, Leroy Hill, Andre Smith, Chris Rainey, Robert Sands, Jonathan Amaya, Bryan Thomas, Chad Johnson, Dez Bryant, Michael Vick, and so on also need to be banned indefinitely.
This situation is complex of course, but the media is exhibiting the textbook hypocrisy and ignorance on the situation that is to be expected when trying to shoot out reports on it as quickly as possible.
