Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice conducted a press conference Thursday morning where he apologized to his wife and all women affected by domestic violence. He took and answered questions for the first time since his alleged altercation with his now wife back in February.

Rice wouldn’t dive into any details about the incident, but he did say it was a “one-time incident”  and “I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

"My actions that night were totally inexcusable," he said. "That night I replay over and over in my head. That's not me. My actions were inexcusable. That's something I have to live with the rest of my life. The pain I'm talking about living with is waking up every day, and my daughter is 2 years old now, and I have a little girl, who's very smart, very intelligent, and one day she's going to know the power of Google, and me having to explain that to her, what happened that night."

Rice's wife, Janay, stood in a balcony overlooking the press conference but never made eye contact with Rice. He stressed that his wife did "no wrong" and referred to her as "an angel."

"There are many nights that me and my wife sleep together and we still have to deal with this," Rice said. "And her pain is my pain, my pain is her pain, the one thing I wanted to do today is you know apologize to my wife, who I've known since high school. I've known her since a kid. I met her in high school and she's the same girl now, great mother, and she's a great wife, and she supports me throughout.

"When the time is right, when the time is right, and I say that because you have to fix yourself before you can go out and help others, and when the time is right me and my wife want to go out there and help people, anybody, violence of any kind, especially man on woman, is just not right. It's not right, it shouldn't be tolerated, it's not right for society, no matter what. That's something I'll stand by and I have to pay for that."

Rice was suspended two games by the NFL last Thursday and fined a total of $529,411.24.

Heavy criticism has come down on the NFL for not coming down harder on Rice and making a greater stand against domestic violence against women. Rice addressed the two-game suspension he was handed down by the NFL in his press conference.

"The two-game suspension I don't have any control over anything that ... you know that's higher authorities," Rice said. "That's something the courts, the NFL commissioner, those are people who make decisions that I can't control, but one thing I can control going forward is being a better father, being a better husband, being a better role model being a better overall person going forward."

There has been great support from the Ravens organization and fans towards Rice during training camp, but there has also been a great deal of anger and backlash. Many fans have written letters and expressed their intent to never attend another Baltimore Ravens game as long as Rice is with the team.

Fans have trashed and even burned their Ray Rice jerseys and feel that the Ravens organization should have taken action apart from the league’s suspension to penalize Rice.

Rice heads into the upcoming season coming off a year be riddled with injuries and underperformance. Rice will look to bounce back this season and regain his pro bowl stature while playing under a heavy microscope as this is a topic that won’t easily go away.