National Football League

Robert Kraft praises Goodell, says Ray Rice won't play in NFL again

Published Sep. 9, 2014 11:56 a.m. ET

Sid Saraf

There's at least one person in Roger Goodell's corner.

"The way he handled this situation himself, coming out with the mea culpa in his statement a couple weeks ago, or 10 days ago, and setting a very clear policy of how we conduct ourselves in the NFL, I thought was excellent," Kraft said on "CBS This Morning." "Anyone who is second-guessing him that doesn't know him."

Kraft isn't optimistic that Rice will get another shot at putting on an NFL uniform.

"Well, I don't think he will play another NFL game," Kraft said. "I would be shocked if some team would pick him up."

The NFL has come under fire in the last 24 hours as TMZ first released the video of Rice striking his then-fiancee Janay Palmer, in a casino elevator in Atlantic City. Then, TMZ reported on Tuesday that the NFL never made an effort to see the tape before handing down a two-game suspension to Rice back in July.

The league responded with this statement on Tuesday:

"Security for Atlantic City casinos is handled by the New Jersey State Police. Any videos related to an ongoing criminal investigation are held in the custody of the state police. As we said yesterday: We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator. That video was not made available to us."

What is Kraft's view of this?

"OK, I don't want to get in the role of law enforcement or things I don't understand. It's just — the good news is, people did the right thing. When you see that visually, it's just such a turnoff, and I hope a great lesson to people everywhere that this isn't going to be tolerated."