Column: The NFL needs discipline

I risk sounding like an elementary school teacher, but the NFL has some discipline problems.

Back on Feb. 15, three-time Pro Bowler and Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his wife, Jenae, were both arrested for simple assault at a casino in Atlantic City.

Four days later TMZ released a video of the aftermath, which showed Rice dragging his wife, Fred Flinstone-style, from inside an elevator.

She was out cold, like she had just taken a right cross to the chin from former boxer Mike Tyson.

The speculation from national pundits was that Rice would receive some major penalties from the NFL through commissioner Roger Goodell.

But still, more than three months after the elevator incident, we’ve yet to hear any meaningful words from the NFL about it, apart from a disaster of a press conference with Rice and his wife that went up in flames like a giant PR Hindenburg.

First and foremost, the running back never apologized to his wife publicly.

He and Jenae were the only two at the podium last Friday, and Rice said sorry to the Baltimore Ravens, his father-in-law, his general manager and his coach — just about everybody except the woman he knocked unconscious.

He dodged accountability like Richard Nixon, referring to the altercation as “this situation that me and my wife were in.”

This would’ve been bad enough, but Rice just kept digging himself into a deeper hole.

At one point Rice gave what he thought was especially sage advice when he proclaimed, “I won’t call myself a failure. Failure is not getting knocked down. It’s not getting up.”

That would be really encouraging sentiment if it weren’t coming from a guy that had just mollywopped his significant other who, coincidentally, didn’t get back up.

But as oblivious and unremorseful as Ray Rice came off in that press conference, the Ravens organization dealt with it in a way that was just as, if not more, ham-handed and tactless.

The organization made a point to select a few quotes to tweet from the conference, including the one about getting up after being knocked down, which apparently doesn’t apply if it’s done to the sounds of Kenny G elevator music.

The Ravens tweeted him, saying “no relationship is perfect” and that he’s “working his way back up.”

The only quote the Ravens tweeted from Jenae said she “deeply regrets” the role she played in the incident.

I understand every story has two sides, but that the organization placed as much fault on Jenae for her role in the incident given the circumstances is more than a little troubling.

Couple that with the fact the NFL has yet to do anything to discipline Rice, who is unlikely to face any jail time, and we’re beginning to see a disturbing trend in the way the NFL handles player discipline.

Earlier this month, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon got suspended for the entire 2014 season for testing positive for marijuana.

Granted, this wasn’t his first failed drug test, but at this point most people agree that smoking a little pot is basically a victimless crime compared to what Rice did to Jenae.

Keep in mind this is the same NFL and the same commissioner who is giving Gordon the same punishment he gave Donte Stallworth when he killed a guy back in 2009 while driving drunk.

We need to make the NFL accountable for the way it disciplines its players.

The league already has a dubious reputation for player conduct, but right now the NFL’s biggest problem might be how it conducts itself.

And no matter how badly the league wishes it would, this problem won’t just go away.

­aknorth@indiana.edu