No you wouldn't. You would defend the team to your dying breath, just like you defend Hardy. You'd take the "there's no evidence.... we don't really know what happened..." approach like you do with him.
Amazing how the laundry a player wears influences how you feel about them, huh? At least man up and admit it.
Actually, I was against Hardy for the longest time until I saw the pictures of Holder. She had claimed to be slapped and punched and choked. Yet, there were no slap marks, no punch marks and no strangulation marks.
I then read about the case and why the DA expunged the record. I'm not really even sure what exactly Hardy did. But, I know that the media narrative is very incorrect. You had a woman that admitted to doing coke and being drunk before the incident. She was heard on Hardy's 911 call
apologizing and saying that she didn't want to be arrested (presumably for hitting Hardy in the face with her shoe). And when the police came, she
ran away from the police according to the police. She also told police that the marks on her arm were from Sammy Curtis and not Hardy. Then in the bench trial, she claimed she was choked, slapped and the bruises on her arm were from Hardy slamming a toilet lid on them.
I do know that DA's are never in a hurry to expunge records as witnessed by the DA's that avoid to expunge records of men convicted of rape and later being cleared on DNA evidence. And the DA stated that he had problems with Holder's testimony in the bench trial which contradicted the statements to police (arm bruising) and the evidence (no signs of punch marks, slap marks or strangulation marks). And again, she admitted to doing coke and being drunk, which would impair judgment and memory as well as make her more likely to be violent.
I do know that there was a case in the Bronx where a man was being harassed by some girls on the subway and eventually he called one of them a name and she hit him in the face with a shoe and he turned around and overhand slapped her. At first he was arrested, but when the DA saw the video, he dropped the charges on the man and continued with the charges on the girl. The point being is that the law sided with the man in a case that was similar to what Hardy is proposing, except there are no signs of Hardy slapping, punching or strangling Holder. And a shove would be treated as less.
Furthermore, I am consistent with how I would handle these situations.
As I said with the Ray Rice situation (even before the tape became public), he should be suspended for 1-year. If the evidence is sufficient, I take domestic violence seriously. But at the same time, I do believe that people are allowed to make mistakes, even some bad mistakes, and it shouldn't be a death sentence. Hardy sat out for over 1-year. And my issue with the media in the Hardy case, besides the terribly inaccurate narrative of what happened, is that they are inconsistent in how punishment should be dealt as nobody is demanding that Adrian Peterson should be banned for life while they can't get enough of wanting to ban Hardy for life.
Your team cheated. If my team cheated like your Patriots did, I would be embarrassed and not really into rooting for the team anymore. I can't stand the Eagles, Skins and Giants, but at least I have the respect for them for playing us on the up-and-up.
It reminds me of the great Bobby Jones who once called a moving ball penalty on himself that cost him a victory and he was the only one that saw the ball move. When he was congratulated by the press for calling the penalty on himself when nobody else saw the ball move, Jones replied '
you might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.'
It's terrible what the Patriots did but even worse what Goodell did in covering it up. He got down in the dirt with dogs, now he has to deal with the fleas.
YR