Bart Scott entered television carrying the perspective of a former NFL linebacker, but his first full season on The NFL Today quickly put him in the middle of one of the league’s biggest controversies. More than a decade later, Scott has revisited that experience and claimed the network wanted him to deliver a much harsher verdict on former Baltimore Ravens teammate Ray Rice than he was willing to give.
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Scott, speaking this week on The Pivot, said he felt CBS was trying to use him to generate a dramatic television moment during the Rice scandal.
“One thing I hated about my experience with CBS … I felt like they thought they were going to use me like a puppet, and I reversed, Uno, draw-two, f*** you,” Scott said on The Pivot.
The controversy Scott was discussing dates back to 2014, when Rice became the center of a national conversation about domestic violence. Rice had been arrested after an incident involving his then-fiancée in an Atlantic City casino. The NFL initially suspended him for two games and fined him $529,411.24
On September 8, TMZ released another video of the assault, after which the Ravens released him, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced an indefinite suspension. Until then, Rice had tallied 6,180 regular-season rushing yards, posting more than 1,000 yards in four seasons. He had also earned three Pro Bowl nods and one Super Bowl victory.
CBS had named Scott a full-time studio analyst for The NFL Today in February 2014. According to Scott’s recent recollection, he believed CBS wanted him to attack his former teammate on television and turn the situation into a series of sharp sound bites.
“What they wanted was crazy, can’t wait, can’t believe this, ahh ‘He beat his wife, he should be banned, blah, blah, blah.’ And they wanted that, and I can tell that they were setting me up for that,” Scott said. “But if they would have did their opposition research, they would have known that I was a teammate of Ray.
Scott and Rice had played together for only the 2008 season with the Baltimore Ravens. It was Rice’s rookie season, but the two hit it off well. Rice once showed a text that his friend and fellow rookie Rashard Mendenhall (who was with the Steelers) sent him ahead of the game. While Rice might have brushed it off, Bart Scott used it to send a warning to the enemy camp.
Even after Scott left Baltimore, the friendship clearly hadn’t run its course. In 2009, Rice took over a Thanksgiving event started by Bart Scott in Baltimore after he left for New York.
“I’m the type of friend when the world is against you, even though I would be against you, I’m gonna support you and then I’m going to be against you and take you to the side after the fact. After I help you through the storm. I ain’t gonna abandon you, you know what I’m saying?”
Per FOX, Rice used to train relentlessly in Connecticut in case a team came calling. However, that never happened. In 2018, he said he was “done with football,” and was “helping out the youth.”
Scott was replaced on The NFL Today by Nate Burleson in 2017. His comments only reflect his side of what happened, so they do not show what CBS executives were actually thinking at the time. Still, they explain why Scott felt the network was trying to manipulate him into taking a position he did not want.
Scott then found a spot with ESPN. Unfortunately, he was laid off by the network this year, along with fellow former ESPN colleagues Ryan Clark and Cam Newton.