Ray Rice Wants To Play Football Again

The rest of the NFL appears to have passed him by, but former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice has not faltered in his desire to once again appear on an NFL field.

“I do want to play football again and I’m not ready to give up,” Rice told listeners on The Dan Patrick Show, while also adding that he thought he’d get a call from a team “early in the year” and that he “would have loved to be in training camp and learned an offense.”

As it turns out, most NFL teams can only afford to be hypocritical when it comes to signing wayward players when said players are, well, good. Men like Greg Hardy might not sit well in the court of public opinion, but they fill a much-needed role on their team that can’t be easily replaced.

Rice, on the other hand, was last seen hitting the proverbial running back brick wall while in pads and cleats.

His vision, speed and elusiveness diminished at a rapid rate in Baltimore, en route to a 3.1 yards-per-carry average not long before video footage surfaced of him knocking out his fiancé in an elevator. By all accounts, the Ravens now had an excuse to cut the unproductive pariah.

Frankly, if a desperate team or two were still interested in what Rice had to offer, the calls would have come already.

It’s telling that teams like the New England Patriots – searching for yet another running back after season-ending injuries to both Dion Lewis and LeGarette Blount – have turned their attention to tapped-out veteran Steven Jackson and completely ignored the younger Rice.

Unfortunately for Ray, a combination of poor performance, age drawing ever closer to the dreaded 3-0 and still being the nation’s poster boy for domestic violence committed by professional athletes doesn’t exactly result in Super Bowl contenders beating down the door.

And maybe that’s for the best. The NFL has moved on from Rice. It’s time for Rice to do the same with the NFL.