Former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy, exiled from the NFL after allegedly beating his girlfriend (and a litany of other things, because beating women doesn’t turn NFL teams away from players all by itself), wants you to know that he is both innocent and not a psychopath.
“Guilty? I mean, the United States of America said I wasn’t. But apologetic, most definitely. I’m sorry for anything I did wrong. I never wanted to do anything wrong,” said Hardy, via Bleacher Report.
“It’s hard to fight the fans. You can’t be right about somebody if you don’t know them—that’s just a basic common decency fact. But nobody wants to attest to that, so I have to show that Greg Hardy is not a f–king psychopath. And I say f–king because it’s that extreme. I want people to see that, instead of reading and believing the latest stories.”
There are a lot of reasons Greg Hardy isn’t in the NFL right now other than: he allegedly beat a woman, but most of them are at least related to that — including these quotes, so let’s focus on that angle of Hardy.
Technically, Hardy is correct that he was never found guilty in court. What he leaves out is that he was only found innocent after his girlfriend, Nicole Holder, refused to testify a second time — after Hardy appealed an initial conviction — and took a settlement.
He also doesn’t seem in any way apologetic for an alleged beating that looks as clear as day based on pictures of Holder found by Deadspin in 2015. (And remember, it was these pictures that forced Hardy from the NFL. Not the initial report. Because the NFL apparently does not care about domestic violence unless it hurts their image.)
Was Hardy treated unfairly by the league? Yes. And so was Ray Rice. If you remember, both were initially suspended for a small number of games in the 2015 season after domestic violence incidents. Then, after the Ray Rice video came out, commissioner Roger Goodell abruptly changed the league’s policy and put both players on the exempt list, forcing them to sit out a year.
A federal judge later ruled Goodell and the NFL knew what happened in the elevator before making the initial suspension. Again, the NFL only cares about domestic violence when their public image is at stake.
However, Hardy was given a second chance — unlike Rice who, despite his horrific act, is infinitely more deserving, having showed remorse for his actions and at least seeming to be doing right by it now. Why? Because there was no image of what Hardy did, at least until Deadspin found the images. And, going by the pictures, police report and Hardy’s overall complete lack of remorse, he is a psychopath. Or at least something close to it.