Ray Rice is finally free of his ridiculous suspension and is free to sign with any team he so chooses. Earlier today it was announced Rice won his appeal over Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL in regards to his indefinite suspension from the league after footage leaked of him hitting his wife. The entire time the NFL and Goodell seemed very sketchy about what they were up to when it came to Rice, even creating punishment as it went along instead of sticking to policy. Rice has his freedom back and has something to say about it as well.

@IamJoeSports

It became more and more apparent as time went on that the NFL and commissioner Goodell were clearly lying about what they knew when it came to Rice’s domestic incident. They attempted to indefinitely suspend him after footage of Rice brutally hitting her went viral, after only suspended him for two games prior to the footage being leaked. They tried to sweep the incident under the rug, even though Rice told them everything that happened. When the footage leaked and it was ugly to watch, the league tried to play stupid as if Rice never told them it was that bad and THEN tried to suspend him indefinitely.

Problem for the league was other people knew Rice told them the whole story upfront. People like Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome, who even under oath in court said Rice was upfront with the entire story, contradicting what Goodell tried to lie about.

In the decision, U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones explained … “Rice did not mislead the Commissioner at the June 16th meeting, and therefore, that the imposition of a second suspension based on the same incident and the same known facts about the incident, was arbitrary.”

“The Commissioner needed to be fair and consistent in his imposition of discipline. Moreover, any failure on the part of the League to understand the level of violence was not due to Rice’s description of the event but to the inadequacy of words to convey the seriousness of domestic violence. That the League did not realize the severity of the conduct without a visual record also speaks to their admitted failure in the past to sanction this type of conduct more severely.”

Rice obviously excited about today’s outcome had this to say:

“I would like to thank Judge Barbara Jones, the NFL Players Association, my attorneys, agents, advisors, family, friends and fans – but most importantly, my wife Janay.”

“I made an inexcusable mistake and accept full responsibility for my actions. I am thankful that there was a proper appeals process in place to address this issue.”

“I will continue working hard to improve myself and be the best husband, father and friend, while giving back to my community and helping others to learn from my mistakes.”