Former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice is speaking out against domestic violence, but he said he’s not doing it as a way to rejoin the NFL.

“I’ll be the first one to say it: I don’t have to retire to tell you I’m done with football,” Rice said during an interview with “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday.

In the interview, in which he appeared with his wife, Janay, Rice said he sees similarities with himself after a video showed former Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt shoving and kicking a woman at a hotel last month.

Rice was dropped from the team after he was captured on videos punching, kicking and dragging his then-fiancee from an elevator in 2014.

Janay said she had no idea she was in an abusive relationship at the time.

“I know that, you know, I just thought we were being a typical, you know, boyfriend and girlfriend. Like, we argue and…I didn’t really sit back and think about it until I was forced to think about it,” Janay said.

Janay has never seen the video from inside the elevator – the one where her now-husband punches her. She said it was the first and only time he physically abused her.

“I was there. I lived it. I don’t really need to relive it over and over again just to appease the world,” she said.

When Ray looks at the tape now, he sees a person he hates.

“I hate that person. I hate him….Somewhere down the line everybody who’s sayin’, ‘Does he deserve a second chance for football?’ And this that and the other – I actually got my second chance,” Ray said.

A second chance with his wife.

“During my darkest moments, and I used to ask myself, ‘How could she even be – want to support me?….That’s understandable. But I think what’s misunderstood about us is that the friends we were before the incident. That’s why, like I said, when I look at Kareem Hunt, I wanna know what his life was like. I want to know what happened in life. I know Kareem has apologized, and has expressed remorse for survivors of domestic violence,” Ray said.

Still, for some, this may just seem like an attempt to get back on the field. Ray denies that’s his plan.

“Well, see that for me, is something that I understand why it was being said early on about, you know, is this a ploy to get back into football. And I’ll be the first one to say it. I don’t have to retire to tell you I’m done with football. The pressure I was under of being a star that was the person I hated the most,” he said.

Ray doesn’t believe he deserves another chance to play football, intentions aside, and said he’s met with the NFL about how they’re handling domestic abuse as an organization.

“They’re trying to do the right thing…I know they are working with groups to try to get more of an understanding. And they’re doing the work,” he said.

Good to see Rice taking a terrible incident he dealt with and turning it into a positive teaching moment. 

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