Roger Goodell got it wrong at the beginning. Then he got it wrong again at the end.

What's most alarming, however, is how wrong he got it in between.

The NFL commissioner's decision to suspend Ray Rice indefinitely was overturned on Friday by a neutral arbitrator, meaning the former Baltimore Ravens running back can sign with any team and play right away.

So after giving Rice a too-light penalty initially, suspending him for two games for striking then-fiancée Janay Palmer in a hotel elevator in Atlantic City, Goodell erred on the other extreme.

View photos Ray Rice and his wife Janay arrive at an appeal hearing in New York on Friday. (AP) More

Former U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones, who ruled on the case, wrote in her decision, "I find that the indefinite suspension was an abuse of discretion and must be vacated."

Goodell didn't just mishandle the decision. He mishandled the truth.

"In this arbitration," Jones wrote, "the NFL argues that Commissioner Goodell was misled when he disciplined Rice the first time." She went on in the next sentence to state, "I am not persuaded that Rice lied to, or misled, the NFL."

So if Rice was not misleading, does that mean Goodell misled the public in his account of this ordeal? Jones' decision gives us great insight into that.

Goodell has moved the goalposts throughout this catastrophe. He based the two-game suspension (handed down in July) on precedent, as if ruling in a complete vacuum, and then he came out with his proposal for a six-game ban for first-time domestic violence offenders. According to Jones' ruling, Goodell informed Rice that the new policy "didn't impact on him."

Then, as we all know, it did impact on him. Goodell viewed (or reviewed, if you believe his detractors) the video of Rice's punch and in September decided to move the suspension past six games to indefinitely. He based this on Rice giving him a "starkly different series of events" (in their initial meeting in June) than what occurred.

In fairness to the commissioner, the video of the punch was abhorrent. To watch a man strike his partner is to want him punished indefinitely. Yet it should not have been a surprise just how ugly the video was. Hitting a woman is always ugly – one of the ugliest things imaginable. Goodell should have imagined it.

View photos Roger Goodell (USA TODAY Sports) More

Failing that, he should have asked for more specifics. Rice gave his series of events to the commissioner in their June meeting, describing the arc of his left arm as he swung. The strike could have been with an open hand or a closed fist, but no one asked either Rice or Palmer about that. Obviously any hit is abominable, but a closed fist gives a better sense of how vicious the strike really was.

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