Sometimes, a public personality is better off just letting a controversy pass without chiming in. That’s only magnified when the controversy includes the every-growing issue of domestic violence in today’s society.
Now add in professional sports, the NFL in particular, and this is taken to an entirely new level.
Current Carolina Panthers defensive end Charles Johnson, a former teammate of free agent Greg Hardy, decided just recently that making a controversial comment publicly is more sensible than actually biting his tongue.
In showing support for his embattled friend, Johnson had this to say (via ESPN):
“He’s a good guy,” Johnson said this week. “He just makes bad decisions. I just hope he gets out there and finds a place so he can really prove his talent and show what he’s really all about instead of giving interviews to people about the situation.”
Unless you have been hiding under a rock recently, Hardy is once again in the news for the wrong reasons. He gave an interview with ESPN’s Adam Schefter this week denying that he’s ever laid his hands on any woman in his life.
This comes after Hardy himself was suspended for the first six games of the 2015 season after initially being found guilty of domestic violence in North Carolina before seeing that case overturned.
The story is by now well known. It has also received a ton of play from those outside of the football community. Is this the norm around the league? Who is doing anything of substance to combat it? These are questions posed to the NFL as a whole.
For a player to come out in support of Hardy and call him a “good guy,” it tells us a story of other players that simply don’t get it.
More than this, Johnson, contrary to everything released publicly since the domestic violence incident, is deciding to believe Hardy’s words:
“That’s my friend,” Johnson said. “I ain’t got no other choice but to believe him. Whatever he’s telling me, I’m going to believe that because I’ve got no other choice.”
Johnson would have been much better off showing his support to Hardy behind the scenes. No one has an issue with him supporting a friend.
The problem here is that he’s doing so in the midst of a firestorm of criticism directed at multiple individuals involved in this situation. He’s doing so immediately after Hardy refused to accept responsibility for his actions.
He’s doing so in a public forum that’s not exactly accepting applications for those who support a man that many believe is a domestic abuser.