You just beat the hell out of your girlfriend. Threw her around your apartment during a heated argument. After some further conflict you then throw her onto a futon covered with several choices from your machine gun and rifle collection, point one at her and threaten to shoot.
Now fast forward a year. Despite an assault charge, arrest and public shaming, you are happily and legally employed and might be making $11 million this year. That sounds obscene, right?
That is the exact situation that the Dallas Cowboys’ Greg Hardy finds himself in at the moment. Hardy, who calls himself “Kraken,” a reference to the terrifying giant sea monster, is among the most dynamic defensive players in the National Football League. He likens himself to the Kraken for his ferocious play on the football field, but the metaphor is more accurately reflective of his nauseating moral makeup.
For the whole beating-his-girlfriend routine, Hardy got 60 days in jail and 18 months on probation. That’s pretty light in the first place. He appealed the decision, because that is what a wealthy woman-beater will do when confronted with jail time; his former-girlfriend didn’t show up, and he got off completely free.
Oh yeah, and he’s not too remorseful, with his only apology since the whole woman-beating ordeal being that he was sorry for “not being there for his teammates.”
Regardless of what technicality happened to allow him to avoid jail-time—although that is also puzzling—why would an employer continue to let this closest-thing-to-human-garbage work?
This has got to be a fireable offense right?
For Jerry Jones, the owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, that wasn’t a hard question to answer. The opportunity to have one of the most explosive defenders in the league was too great to consider petty things like domestic violence. Especially in an industry where a large part of recruitment revolves around physical size and the subsequent intimidation factor.
Hardy was impressive in his season debut against the Patriots, sacking Tom Brady and solidifying Jones’ suspicions that he was going to make an immediate impact on the field.
You are forgiven Greg Hardy, because you are a flat-out stud athlete.
The broader issue here of course is not that Hardy gets to play football. It’s the constant double standard that has always been very visible in sports, specifically the NFL, and is underlined by Hardy’s reinstatement into the NFL. If you’re good, no one cares how bad of a person you are. Even if you almost killed someone.
It is this sort of disgusting behavior that is creating quite a buzz of negative energy around the NFL. Though it continues to be mega-popular, there is a growing, strong current of criticism from the public on many issues such as domestic violence, substance abuse and concussion protocol.
The fact that Greg Hardy is currently employed and paid an obscene sum of money is indicative of what is obvious: the league values strong and fast players and does not concern itself with the actual individuals.
As an avid football fan, I want to love the NFL, I really do. But this Hardy situation makes that difficult, and having to watch the league forsake any scrap of morality for the holy dollar is weighing heavily on my conscience.
The NFL is just too damn entertaining to stop watching, and I guess that is the way the NFL likes it, so who cares if some of their players should be in prison?
Follow Scott Baca on Twitter.
