The Ray Rice redemption flotilla left harbour quietly on Friday.
Coming up on a week later, it's puttering along in very shallow water. But, amazingly, the fleet is still seaworthy.
A month ago, we agreed that Rice was finished as an NFL player. In a milieu where you can always find a contrary voice, none had piped up in his defence. The video showing him knocking out then-fiancée Janay Rice in an Atlantic City elevator was too jarring.
But where there is the promise of money and an engaged audience, no story can be allowed to die. The average cable-news viewer was willing to plow through only so much soul-searching on domestic violence. No one was going to read/listen to/watch reports on Rice's quiet withdrawal into private life. There was only one way to push this boulder forward.
So right now, it's probably 50-50 that Rice plays again. He could be back in pads by the weekend.
How did that happen?
Most of the fault lies with the chief disciplinarian. Most of the work has been done by the victim. In between, the news cycle continued to lend the story legs, long after it had lost the use of its own.
It started with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. He was of two minds on this file. When he first heard about it, he moved to protect his employers and his employee. When the release of the video showed that to be a disastrous error in judgment, Goodell pulled the handbrake in the midst of freeway traffic. He accused the running back of a cover-up, attempting to suspend him into retirement.
Because no American tyrant can admit what he is, Goodell wanted the cover of capital-J Justice. He brought in a retired judge to review the case. She cut emotion out of the mix, reducing the incident to an administrative matter.
In a disciplinary meeting, did Rice tell Goodell he'd "slapped" his fiancée, or did he say he'd "hit" her? Did he say she'd "knocked herself out" as she fell, slamming her head into a railing?
The judge sided with the player, as well as the recollections of others in the room. Rice hadn't tried to minimize what he'd done. There was no basis on which to impose a second punishment of indefinite suspension. Rice's lifetime ban was rescinded.
It didn't change a thing about what he'd done, but suddenly we were in an argument about semantics instead of violence.
This was the wedge the Rice camp needed to swing the narrative in their favour – "Roger Goodell is a liar."
The media – old and new – don't like Goodell. He's too slick, too imperious and, most important, too rich. After chewing all the flavour out of Rice, the pack's attention turned on the wounded commissioner.
The public went right along with them. They'd spent months kicking Rice's head around. They wanted a new one.
The ruling came down Friday. The Rice camp had seen this moment coming a long ways off. They'd already dangled an exclusive in front of ESPN, and been hard at work on a sympathetic take. The Worldwide Leader in Sports does tend to enjoy following.
ESPN spent hours with the woman Rice had beaten, and her family. Janay Rice told a moony, compelling story about her husband. Parts of it read like the back cover of a Sweet Valley High novel.
The key point: This was a one-time-only mistake by an absolute sweetheart of a guy.
Everyone will view what Rice says through the lens of their own experience, but it is impossible to aggressively rebut someone in the midst of an act of forgiveness. Janay Rice placed herself in front of her husband. Attacking him now seems like attacking her. So everyone stopped.
Rice blamed the man who'd hit her, but she did not fault him.
"I know for a fact … that Ray told the honest truth that he's been telling from February," Rice told NBC's Today.
Ray Rice: formerly a wife-beater, currently a teller of honest truths.
The only fault Janay Rice wanted to talk about was the commissioner's.
On Goodell: "I can't say he's telling the truth."
Roger Goodell: formerly a stand-in for every slippery authority figure in your life; currently a liar.
What's lost here is why Goodell played loose with the language. He absolutely did it to deflect attention away from the league. Doing whatever's necessary to protect the shield is why he's paid so much ($44-million [U.S.] last year).
But Goodell also wanted to give people what they were demanding – a way to get rid of Ray Rice.
The commissioner miscalculated on the motivations of a media-led mob. It wants something until you give it to them. Three or four cycles later, there's no new information. Nobody's squirming. It's all getting pretty dull.
Now the mob wants the opposite of what you give. It wants pathos and redemptive tears. It wants all of this to mean something and be tied up neatly so that it can move on to the next outrage.
The NFL had nothing to give, so it turtled. It lost control of the story.
Ray and Janay Rice and their team of flacks and lawyers picked up that abandoned initiative. They gave people the cheap transcendence they were looking for.
We won't know if it's paid off until a team decides to offer Rice a job. Even if Rice's plan works, he may come to regret it. A return to football gives people a chance to be furious with him again. Only this time, they'll know where to find him.
Shortly after the ex-judge's ruling came down, the Rices were spotted out at a New York bar. They seemed to be celebrating. Out with a few friends. Drinks on the table.
Back to where they started, just like the rest of us.
Cathal Kelly