Ray Lewis Defends Ravens Organization On Handling Of Ray Rice Domestic Violence Incident – ‘Cover Up’ Comment Raises Eyebrows

Ray Lewis, former Baltimore Raven, All-Pro linebacker, Team Captain, and one who has faced severe legal problems of his own, took to ESPN’s “NFL Countdown” Sunday morning to defend his former team and Ravens’ associates as they continue to absorb blow-back from the Ray Rice domestic violence situation.

At the same time, along with defending his former team, midway through his commentary Ray Lewis also said, “There’s some things you can cover up and then there’s some things you can’t.” Given Lewis’s sticky involvement with a murder investigation in 2000 that continues to ask haunting questions, his thoughts on covering things up raised many eyebrows.

Delivering his commentary with the same kind of emotion and passion that drove his highly successful Ravens career, Ray Lewis made clear his devotion to his former team, his belief in their honesty and credibility, and the positive impact the organization has had on his life, reports Fox Sports.

“Yeah, this is one of those situations that… It’s family. I spent 17 years of my career at this one place. I’ve known Ozzie Newsome now over 19 years of my career, of my life. That’s half my life. I’ve known Steve Bisciotti over 15 years of my life. Each one of those men, bottom line, has never lied to me once. They’ve given me an opportunity at life to change not only my life but my family’s life as well as my kids’ lives.”

Along with his personal appreciation of those such as Newsome and Bisciotti, who are both taking their share of heat for allegedly trying to cover up details of the Ray Rice situation, Ray Lewis also touched on themes such as people being imperfect yet deserving of forgiveness.

“If this incident, what we’re dealing with, if they could do this all over again, they would. If the NFL could do this all over again, they would. Whether they saw the tape or not, who really knows outside of the people who was actually there to know what went on? But sometimes I think we get lost in trying to figure out who’s head to go after, who to attack now about what they didn’t do.”

And finally, Ray Lewis got to the real point of the situation, domestic violence and “why we’re here.” But this too was the point where Lewis’s passion and emotion may have revealed more than he wanted to.

“Sometimes we forget why we’re here. We’re here for one reason and one reason only. We’re here for domestic violence. We’re here because we saw a friend of mine brutally hit his wife in an elevator. There’s some things you can cover up and then there’s some things you can’t. Right now is a sad day for me because the reputation that I left in this organization, this isn’t it. This isn’t it. What was built that many of years took hard work to get that.”

And in the end, that was Ray Lewis’s message to the public, that all of the NFL heads threatening to be rolled wouldn’t be in such a situation except for the unforgivable behavior of Ray Rice.

“I don’t want us to lose what’s really going on here. Ray Rice put a lot of people in jeopardy with his actions. A lot of people in jeopardy. Not just himself. He needs to understand that because none of this happens if what happened that night in that elevator don’t happen… If I ask for anything in this whole thing, I ask let there be light.”

As the intense investigation into the Ravens and the NFL and how they handled Ray Rice punching his wife in the face continues, Ray Lewis will likely get his wish. But his friends and associates in the Ravens organization being given a free pass for their handling of the situation is not likely forthcoming.

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