Ray Rice to Present "Dumbest Defense Ever" of TMZ Tape in Appeal: Report

Nick Wass/AP
Impact
Nick Wass/AP

The news: The Ray Rice scandal continues to unfold, and the football player's latest line of defense is quite a doozy.

On Sunday, ESPN reported that according to its sources, Rice's legal team plans to appeal his NFL suspension by arguing that "the NFL suspended the former Baltimore Ravens running back indefinitely off an edited videotape that was not the extended version."

Because the infamous TMZ video of Rice assaulting his then-fiancee was "a cleaned-up, whittled down and condensed version of the events that took place in the Atlantic City casino elevator," it's not an accurate representation of what really happened — or so Rice's team would like us to believe.

Rice is right ... except for one thing. It is true that TMZ posted an edited version of the elevator video. But what Rice's team might have forgotten is that the website also uploaded the raw footage to the very same post, allowing readers to view both versions.

"He's right. We did edit the video ... and we made that point crystal clear in our original post — the same post where we also INCLUDED the raw unedited version showing Rice KOing Janay Palmer," TMZ wrote in a post Sunday. "As we initially reported, the original raw video was jerky — in that it would move forward and then in reverse every couple of frames ... so we removed the reverse frames."

Even in the unedited video, it's pretty clear to see that Rice punches his fiancee and knocks her out — leading TMZ to call Rice's argument the "dumbest defense ever."

"Maybe Rice's team should've scrolled down," the gossip site added.

When TMZ has the moral high ground on you, it's probably time to reconsider your position.