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On Greg Hardy.
What Greg Hardy has done and said in the past 18 months repulses me. Starting with the alleged serious abuse of girlfriend Nicole Holder in Charlotte on May 13, 2014 … being found guilty in a North Carolina bench trial for assaulting and threatening to kill her … his flippant remarks when he returned to play football last month with the Cowboys about coming out “with guns blazing’’ against the Patriots—he had allegedly thrown Holder onto a futon covered with a stash of automatic weapons … seeing the graphic photos of Holder on Deadspinon Friday, showing the marks and welts from the alleged Hardy abuse … and reading his way-too-little-too-late Twitter apology Saturday (“I express my regret 4 what happened in past”) that defined shallow.
But I also think Greg Hardy has the right to play football for the Dallas Cowboys.
Since 2000, approximately 51 NFL players have been found culpable in domestic-violence cases. We have been moved to widespread public outrage twice: in the Hardy case and in the Ray Rice case last year. Both times we saw images, once in a video (Rice) and once in photos of the abuse victim (Hardy), after a trial with graphic testimony. In many of the other cases, surely the abuse would be comparable to—if not quite as stunning as—what Rice did, and what Hardy allegedly did. But we haven’t been outraged, because we haven’t seen the images. Why weren’t we outraged over Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington pleading guilty in 2014 to assaulting the mother of his child, leaving her with a broken collarbone? Or when former Dolphin Phillip Merling was accused by a tearful girlfriend of battery when she was pregnant? Or the numerous other incidents that have left girlfriends and wives battered and in fear of more abuse?
I said the same thing after Rice paid his penalty to the league and to society: He deserves a second chance to ply his professional trade. Rice was suspended by the league for a total of 12 games and won his reinstatement on appeal, and now he sits, almost a full year later, waiting for a team to sign him. Hardy was put on the league’s exempt list for 15 games last year (paid leave), then suspended by commissioner Roger Goodell for the first 10 games of this year after a league investigation into the alleged battery of Holder; Goodell’s ban was cut to four games on appeal, Hardy signed with Dallas, and he began playing for the Cowboys a month ago.
Read the rest: http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/11/08/minnesota-vikings-overtime-decision-week-9-nfl
What Greg Hardy has done and said in the past 18 months repulses me. Starting with the alleged serious abuse of girlfriend Nicole Holder in Charlotte on May 13, 2014 … being found guilty in a North Carolina bench trial for assaulting and threatening to kill her … his flippant remarks when he returned to play football last month with the Cowboys about coming out “with guns blazing’’ against the Patriots—he had allegedly thrown Holder onto a futon covered with a stash of automatic weapons … seeing the graphic photos of Holder on Deadspinon Friday, showing the marks and welts from the alleged Hardy abuse … and reading his way-too-little-too-late Twitter apology Saturday (“I express my regret 4 what happened in past”) that defined shallow.
But I also think Greg Hardy has the right to play football for the Dallas Cowboys.
Since 2000, approximately 51 NFL players have been found culpable in domestic-violence cases. We have been moved to widespread public outrage twice: in the Hardy case and in the Ray Rice case last year. Both times we saw images, once in a video (Rice) and once in photos of the abuse victim (Hardy), after a trial with graphic testimony. In many of the other cases, surely the abuse would be comparable to—if not quite as stunning as—what Rice did, and what Hardy allegedly did. But we haven’t been outraged, because we haven’t seen the images. Why weren’t we outraged over Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington pleading guilty in 2014 to assaulting the mother of his child, leaving her with a broken collarbone? Or when former Dolphin Phillip Merling was accused by a tearful girlfriend of battery when she was pregnant? Or the numerous other incidents that have left girlfriends and wives battered and in fear of more abuse?
I said the same thing after Rice paid his penalty to the league and to society: He deserves a second chance to ply his professional trade. Rice was suspended by the league for a total of 12 games and won his reinstatement on appeal, and now he sits, almost a full year later, waiting for a team to sign him. Hardy was put on the league’s exempt list for 15 games last year (paid leave), then suspended by commissioner Roger Goodell for the first 10 games of this year after a league investigation into the alleged battery of Holder; Goodell’s ban was cut to four games on appeal, Hardy signed with Dallas, and he began playing for the Cowboys a month ago.
Read the rest: http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/11/08/minnesota-vikings-overtime-decision-week-9-nfl
