Watching and Enjoying the Post-Ray Rice NFL Does Not Make You a Bad Person

Watching footage of the same traumatic event over and over again can be hazardous to your mental health.

It could be a mass shooting, a terrorist attack or something less cataclysmic but more relatable, like Ray Rice punching Janay Palmer. The image is replayed and talked about everywhere, on television and the Internet, for days or months. You cannot avoid it. But you watch at your own risk. 

The images are most dangerous to children: They begin to think that the violence keeps happening, over and over again. Adults know better, but our brains are still wired to react in strange ways to endless repetition and graphic violence. Media analyst Dr. George Gerbner coined the phrase "mean world syndrome" decades ago to describe the effect of nonstop bad news on television viewers. Our fear and anger become disproportionate to the real problem. We start to behave counterproductively. Stay out of the city. Don’t let your children walk to school. No knitting needles on the flight, Aunt Eunice.

So I am not being a smart aleck when I remind you that Rice did not punch his fiancee over and over again in the past four days. He did it once—that we know of—seven months ago. Rice is gone now, unemployed in his profession, probably forever. The people who initially downplayed his crime and minimized his punishment have admitted at least some degree of guilt and taken steps to make amends. All of this is in the past, some of it the very distant past. Even the casino where the assault occurred is out of business.

Mel Evans/Associated Press

You know that. But when you relive events over and over again, your subconscious can play tricks on you. That’s why you have that sick feeling in your stomach and a need to do something, even though there is nothing left to do.

Rice punched his fiancee before ISIS, before Ferguson, before dozens of tragic and horrifying events across America and the world. It is OK to still be outraged; it was an outrageous act. But you are also allowed to put it behind you and declare it something to learn from and move forward from, instead of something to wallow in.

In other words, you are allowed to sit down with a beer and enjoy a Ravens-Steelers game on Thursday night, no matter what TMZ, your social networking timeline or my colleagues tell you. You don’t have to feel sticky for watching football or rooting for the Ravens.

How can you enjoy a Ravens game when Rice keeps punching Palmer over and over again, on every network and website that profits from the round-the-clock news cycle (including ours)? Well, Rice won’t be at the game. He would not have been at the game under the terms of his earlier, too-lenient punishment, either. There has been zero chance, for over a month, that you would have to watch Ray Rice on Thursday night.

But the Rice story has moved far beyond Rice. We shifted on Wednesday afternoon into a Roger Goodell feeding frenzy. Goodell's claim that he never had access to the videotape showing the actual punch was always dubious. His recent denials and deflections are troubling, but ultimately, Goodell penalized an employee for punching his wife in July, with or without the tape. No one ever claimed that Rice did not punch his wife; no one bought the “extenuating circumstances” as anything but a diversionary tactic.

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

There is no need to grill Goodell for an admission of guilt. Goodell admitted guilt two weeks ago. Remember that? “My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. I didn’t get it right.”

We knew he screwed up. He admitted he screwed up. Burying a videotape at the bottom of his inbox (or not knowing the NFL had received it) was part of that screw-up. Goodell was being tone-deaf, looking for the easy out and seeing what he chose to see. We knew that, and that, and that, and he acknowledged as much. The “trail of the tape” story does not change things much, but it makes everything more graphic. It is just more old news, a way to turn old disgust into fresh content.

You can be mad as hell if you like, because this is corporate disregard for the truth at its worst (and most typical). But you can also tune out the whole affair and enjoy the game, and you may be better off for doing it.

That’s because we have reached the avalanche portion of the Rice saga, where every pebble causes chaos. When not calling for Goodell's impeachment, we descend into media-versus-media battles. Fox & Friends made insensitive jokes about the Rice assault on Monday. Now, there’s a shocker. Keith Olbermann sees a wide-ranging conspiracy: another shocker. Chris Berman and Trent Dilfer blathered uncomfortably through a Rice discussion during a late-night game telecast. They were deflective, ineloquent and awkward? SEIZE THEM.

Scan your Facebook feed. No one is talking about Ray Rice. They are talking about what someone else said about Ray Rice, or a reaction to the reaction. That’s not information. It’s a dog pile.

Jon Gruden was having none of it during Monday’s early NFL telecast, just hours after Rice’s release by the Ravens and indefinite NFL suspension. He scowled into the camera, thumbs twitching across crossed palms, and growled for a few seconds until the camera returned to the game. Gruden knows what any of us who have tried to talk about Rice on television or radio know: It’s a toxic subject, nearly impossible to talk intelligently about, even with preparation. Your brain navigates from one minefield to the next while your mouth moves. Don’t sound glib, insensitive, strident or sensationalist; remember the grandmas in Peoria; don’t misrepresent a single fact. And remember: One slip, and you’re the one getting heaped with scorn on Facebook.

GAIL BURTON/Associated Press

That’s the atmosphere now surrounding the Rice story in general, and Thursday’s game in particular. We have condemned the sinner. We have condemned the sin. Now we are condemning those who have not condemned loudly enough and trying to execute the reluctant executioners.

John Harbaugh was too much of a company man for some tastes during his press conference. He did not do a solitary thing wrong, folks: He assaulted no one and lacks the authority to suspend anyone. Michael Vick said on WFAN radio (via ESPN) that he hopes Rice gets a second chance, like the one he received. If there is an easier target for scorn in the NFL than Roger Goodell, it’s Michael Vick. How dare he speak honestly about his own experiences and feelings.

The toxicity of the discussion places everyone on high alert. Broadcasters are attending extra production meetings this week, working overtime to prevent Berman-level mishaps, let alone a Fox & Friends or July Stephen A. Smith incident. Even articles like this one undergo extra rounds of editing. Ideas we feel uncomfortable about are left out, lest we be misunderstood or provide extra grist for the mill. It’s precisely the worst way to publicly handle the complex issue of domestic violence, which needs to be discussed frankly and reasonably. But the ship of productive discourse sailed weeks ago. We are now in pins-and-needles, torches-and-pitchforks territory.

We are in a world where an seven-month-old assault in a casino elevator haunts us everywhere we go. It’s a mean, mean world.

Mean world syndrome is a serious cultural problem because misplaced terror and anger detract from our daily lives. Grandma won’t stroll in the park anymore. Teachers cannot pat students on the shoulder for encouragement. Perhaps we do not relax and enjoy Thursday Night Football, because we fear what it says about us—do I care more about touchdowns than domestic violence?—or have become so embedded in the Goodell-Ravens-TMZ-Fox-Berman-Vick indignation sideshow that we have forgotten just how long ago and far away all of this began.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Ray Rice could be anywhere in America tonight, but he will absolutely not be in M&T Stadium. His assault tape may be playing in an endless loop on a dozen different networks, but NFL Network will not be one of them. There will be calls for Goodell's head on a platter on bully-pulpit talk shows, but not during the telecast.

Well, of course they will not talk much about Rice or Goodell. It’s the NFL Network; it must protect the shield. So the network won’t show Rice punching Palmer over and over, won’t parse Goodell’s culpability, won’t crucify the Ravens’ public relations department for performing public relations duties many weeks ago.

Are those really bad things? The Rice story is old news. It does not involve an elected official or a world superpower. It does not ruin the economy. This is just an old crime and a game of slimy corporate CYA. It is not “news”—it does not inform us; it just makes us experience new rage about old events. It does not enlighten us; it just makes us feel mean.

The Ravens-Steelers game is as good a reason as any to do what we always do: watch some football, carry on with our lives and start to move forward.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.