Jerry Jones is bigger problem for NFL than Greg Hardy
Greg Hardy has had sitdowns with coach Jason Garrett over several missteps since joining the Cowboys, but the defensive end could earn up to $13 million this season. MARTIN FENNELLY COLUMNS Published: November 13, 2015 TAMPA — Should it really matter that Deadspin has published photos from Greg Hardy’s domestic violence case, showing the bruised body of his former girlfriend? Even without visuals, I figured that Hardy is an oversized coward who one day will land in prison when he beats on someone else.Sunday, he’ll play defensive end for Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys against the Bucs.But it’s not about Hardy at this point. It’s about Jones. It’s about how much winning matters, enough for Jones to sign Hardy to try to make Dallas’ Super Bowl dream come true. It seems poetic that the Cowboys have yet to win a game with Hardy while Hardy’s former team, the Panthers, have yet to lose one.True, if it hadn’t been the Cowboys, someone else would have signed Hardy. That’s how much winning matters. I’ll always wonder how hard the Bucs thought about it. Lovie Smith danced around the subject Wednesday. I hope Hardy was never truly on the Bucs’ radar. I hope he never is.It was Hardy who was found guilty on two counts of domestic violence by a judge, but his appeal didn’t go before a jury and the case was dismissed after the girlfriend stopped cooperating with prosecutors, who believe she reached a financial arrangement with Hardy.It was Hardy who, before his first game in more than a year, said he wanted to come off his four-game suspension with “guns blazin” — this from someone once accused of threatening to kill someone, choking her and throwing her on a couch covered with ... guns.It was Hardy, remarkably tone deaf, who gave the entire planet the creeps when he all but whistled over Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, before the Cowboys met the Patriots.“I hope she comes to the game,” Hardy said. “I hope her sister comes to the game, all her friends come to the game.”It was Hardy who showed no real contrition after the photos from his case emerged. But he did ... tweet:“Just had to say I express my regret 4 what happened in past and I’m dedicated to being the best person & teammate I can be but mostly I am grateful 4 the opportunity to play in the NFL.”There’s nothing like remorse.It was Hardy who just this week revised his Twitter bio to read: “Innocent until proven guilty-lack of knowledge & information is just ignorance-the unjust/prejudicial treatment of diff categories of people is discrimination.”This led to another meeting between Hardy and Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett, which led to Hardy’s Twitter revision being replaced.But this isn’t about Hardy, who is clearly an idiot on top of being a coward.This is about his enablers.Chief among them is the owner.It was Jones who signed Hardy to a one-year contract that could be worth more than $13 million.It was Jones who actually called Hardy “one of the real leaders on this team” after Hardy was involved in a sideline altercation with Cowboys special teams coach (and former Bucs assistant) Rich Bisaccia and a verbal exchange with receiver Dez Bryant.It was Jones who stuck with Hardy even after the photos were released, while at the same saying, “We do not condone domestic violence.”You already have.How ’bout them Cowboys!I wonder how Dallas tight end Jason Witten feels. Witten grew up with an abusive father. He established the SCORE Foundation, which helps families in crisis to help break the cycle of violence. ESPN’s “E:60” did a moving segment on Witten. Now Greg Hardy is his teammate.“There’s a point of it that you’re a teammate, right?” Witten said during a conference call. “So when a guy gets brought in here ... and they said we’re going to give a guy a second chance, and he’s gone through that process, I think as a teammate you have to kind of take on that same approach. Since Greg’s been here, he’s been great, and you kind of have to go off of your experience with any teammate, but this one in particular, go off of what you see and how he handles those situations.”“My support in putting a stop to domestic violence is unwavering. That’s something that, as you said, in the ‘E:60’ it shows how important that is to me, that my family went through it. But I think it’s clear from that standpoint that that’s how you have to approach it as a teammate and in the locker room.”I don’t blame Witten. I blame Jones for putting Witten and other players in this position, all so Hardy could get his second chance.I’m fairly sick of second chances for the spectacularly unrepentant. Know what Hardy’s second chance is? It’s that he’s not behind bars. It’s that each day he gets an opportunity to be in society, to treat people with respect. That’s second chance enough. It didn’t have to come with a $13 million carrot.But he can still put quarterbacks on their backs, if not on a pile of guns. That was enough for Jones, who wants to win it all even if the rest of us lose every time Hardy lines up to play.