Broward State Attorney’s Office prosecutors dropped a domestic battery charge against a Miami Dolphins outside linebacker coach who was accused of shoving a woman he’s in a relationship with during an argument over the summer in Fort Lauderdale.
On Wednesday, prosecutors issued a memo announcing lack of evidence and witnesses to support the charge, and the woman who police initially said was the victim insisted she does not want to press charges against 37-year-old Ryan Crow.
According to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s arrest report, Crow and the woman were arguing outside of their apartment building at the 200 block of South Federal Highway after midnight Aug. 29. Witnesses told officers they saw him grapple with the woman and put his arms around here “as if he were going to perform a takedown.”
The couple had just returned from a Dolphins work party and both “had been drinking extensively,” Assistant State Attorney Stefanie Newman wrote in the Oct. 1 closeout memo declaring the charge dropped.
One witness told police that Crow went back inside the building when he noticed people watching the situation, according to the report.
But prosecutors who watched footage from a security camera on the building said it was “blurry” and did not corroborate what some witnesses and the woman told police.
“The videos outside do not clearly show the defendant trying to grab or slap the victim, nor does it clearly show the defendant pushing the victim as described by the victim and the gate attendant,” Newman wrote.
Newman also noted that the footage shows the woman hitting Crow’s hat off his head and shoving him.
The woman spoke to prosecutors and told them the whole ordeal was “an alcohol fueled event, that she was not in fear of the defendant and wanted contact with him. The victim was adamant that she did not want charges filed,” Newman wrote.
Crow’s attorney, Michael A. Gottlieb, released a statement to the Miami Herald praising the decision to drop the charge.
“I applaud the Broward State Attorney’s for conducting a very thorough investigation. I’ve known all along Coach Crow was not guilty and that the State could not prove that any crime happened. Unfortunately, Florida law requires an arrest when there is any allegation of domestic violence. The witness accounts were not accurate and did not correspond to the video evidence. Now that he has been cleared, I hope that Coach Crow can get back to a normal life and start working with the Dolphins again.”
The Dolphins placed Crow on administrative leave after his arrest. The Miami Herald reached out to the team asking if that has changed now that the charge was dropped, but Dophins representatives did not immediately respond.
Crow joined the Dolphins as outside linebackers coach in 2024. He spent six seasons, 2018-23, with the Tennessee Titans.
In his first two seasons in Tennessee, he served as a defensive assistant. In 2020, he was a special teams coach. Starting in 2021, he became the outside linebackers coach and he helped several Titans defenders to some of the best seasons in their career. The Titans finished in the top half of the league in rushing defense all three seasons