Saturday Night Live’s season premiere was timed to fall on the eve of Sunday’s Ravens-Panthers game. Since both teams have players who have been accused in domestic violence incidents, the NBC sketch comedy specialists used the opportunity to lampoon the NFL, and the massive fallout triggered by the release of video showing ex-Ravens star Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee Janay Rice in an Atlantic City elevator.
The video shows fake starting lineups of both teams introducing themselves by which crime they committed. Host Chris Pratt even gets involved, introducing himself as, “Victor Naples, whole bunch of stuff.” As the Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik points out, the writers interestingly chose to skewer CBS, even though SNL’s overlords at NBC also have a massive NFL contract to show the Sunday night “Game of the Week.”
Even if it’s all a joke, Ravens fans probably won’t like seeing their entire team held up as a bunch of criminals. But credit SNL for giving the Panthers equal treatment when, at least in the national consciousness, the domestic violence incident involving their own Greg Hardy hasn’t been given as much attention.
Video via Saturday Night Live:
