Nothing about the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice fiasco is funny, but Jon Stewart has done a masterful job of exposing the comedy of errors by Roger Goodell and his league throughout this entire mess.
“The Daily Show” host led off his Wednesday broadcast with the controversial story, first mocking the legal system for its handling of Rice’s assault on his then-fiancee, Janay — “And the justice system had no choice but to throw the book at Rice. Specifically a book titled, ‘So you’re sentenced to Counseling: A Violent Offender’s Guide to Lenient Punishments'” — before setting his sights on the NFL, which revamped its domestic policy only after Rice was suspended two games for knocking Janay Rice out inside the elevator of an Atlantic City casino in February. The penalties were later increased to six games for first-time offenders and a lifetime ban for subsequent transgressions.
“Let that be a lesson to NFL players everywhere,” Stewart said mockingly. “If you hit a woman, they will not let you hit a man for six more weeks.”
The knockout comes at the end of Stewart’s monologue, when the 51-year-old comedian shines a spotlight on the irony of the NFL’s insistence that it had never seen the Rice video prior to TMZ’s release of the clip on Monday, even after a law enforcement source told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he sent a copy to the league.
“So you had the tape, and you want us to believe that you did not look at it,” Stewart said. “Well, I think we’re all pretty well aware of the NFL’s obsessive-compulsive tape-watching addictions.
“For God’s sake, you get 24 angles and high-res slow-motion just to see whether or not a man’s knee goes over an imaginary line before his hand crosses a different imaginary line.
“(There’s an) NFL officiating command center. You’d think they were launching nukes rather than confirming if the ball had indeed touched the ground first,” Stewart said incredulously.
“So NFL, perhaps next time you attempt to bury the damaging information about your league’s conduct, I guess we’ll know to throw the red challenge flag.”