Ray Rice Tells His Side Of The Story To Matt Lauer, NFL Star Hoping For "Second Chance" - Says "No Relationship Is Perfect" [VIDEO]

MStars News previously heard Janay Rice's side of the story about the night earlier this year that left her unconscious after her husband, former Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice, punched her in an Atlantic City elevator, now it's Ray's turn to talk and talk he did -- with Matt Lauer.

In a new interview with NBC's Today Show anchor Matt Lauer, Ray is holding nothing back and reveals that he had a lot of regret about that terrible night that ended his career in football and also gave him a "second chance" after he won his appeal last week.

When Lauer asked Ray does he think a team and fans want to see him play back in the NFL after his infamous knock out that has been played over a million times in the media, Ray said, "They would have to be willing to, you know, look deeper into who I am and realize that me and my wife had one bad night, and I took full responsibility for it. And one thing about my punishment and everything going along with anything that happened is that I've accepted it. I went fully forward with it. I never complained, or I never did anything like that. I took full responsibility for everything that I did, and the only thing I can hope for and wish for is a second chance."

During Monday's interview, Janay explained that she was trying to help her husband as she apologized during their first press conference after the February altercation. But one thing that has bothered a lot of people was the fact that Ray didn't apologize to his wife.

Lauer asked the football star did he now understand why so many were upset. Ray said, "Yes, I definitely understand that. The reason why that press conference was the way it was, was because we were still under legal situations. So there wasn't much that could be said, but I'll be honest, we were nervous, I was nervous, and that was the first time we were available to speak. And I made a horrendous mistake not apologizing to my wife."

"We were given what to speak about. It wasn't truly coming from us, if you can understand, but I made that clear in my last time I was able to speak that my wife is an angel. She can do no wrong. I take full responsibility for my actions."

Lauer asked Ray if Janay's apology affected him to understand their situation, and if so why and how.

Ray replied, "In hindsight I think she was doing it because she knows what I do for a living. She understood my job and my profession. And I think it was her doing that, trying to take light off the situation, to..."

Lauer's short response was, "Protect you."

As Ray continued, "Yeah. And I appreciated it, but that's not what the big deal is. The big deal is for me to always protect her, and that's why I said I take full responsibility. She can do no wrong. This is something, you know, as a man you have to own and, we're horribly sorry, and I'm horribly sorry for everything that I have to put my family through. I still got to live every day, go take my daughter to school. She's going to grow up and the way the Internet works now she's going to Google her father's name and the first thing that's going to come up is, you know what's going to come up."

"The reality of it and that's what I'm more worried about fixing is that I want my wife, my daughter, my family - we all just want our lives back. I realize football was one thing, but now I realize that the amount of people we've affected, the amount of families we've affected, that, you know, domestic violence is a real issue in society. We could take our one bad night, it just happened to be on video, but we are truly sorry to the people that are really going through it. You know, it's a real problem. And I know when the time is right, I know my wife wants to help, I know I want to help."

When the NBC host asked Ray have there been other moments where he laid his hands on Janay during their relationship, Ray said:

"I truly understand that, and one thing you learn is that, you know, we weren't in a perfect relationship. No relationship is perfect. We've had arguments, but when you talk about abuse, you know, that's something that we know that we'd never cross that path. But then did we say things to each other that we want to take back at times? Yeah, we crossed that line before, but it never got to an altercation where it went that far. That was just very uncharacteristic of myself. I take responsibility. That was very uncharacteristic."

Check out how Janay's father took the news that his daughter was knocked unconscious: