Some of the Sunday morning reports that emerge every (wait for it) Sunday morning are significant. Some are obvious.
One of the obvious reports that emerged this Sunday morning is still nevertheless sufficiently significant to be mentioned.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that the status and playing time of Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy won’t change despite Friday’s photo dump by someone who apparently wasn’t happy that the criminal charges against Hardy had been officially expunged one day earlier. It’s obvious because owner/G.M. Jerry Jones already has made it clear that the photos have no impact on the team’s attitude toward Hardy.
The Cowboys signed Hardy knowing that he’d done something that had gotten him in trouble with the law and with the league. Even though he hadn’t been suspended before the Cowboys signed him, they knew something was coming.
Then again, maybe the Cowboys didn’t really know that Hardy had done anything wrong until they saw the photos.
“We really did our homework and our investigations,” Jones told Bernard Goldberg of HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel in September. “And the facts are that he was not convicted.”
“He wasn’t convicted because the girlfriend didn’t show up after he was convicted the first time,” Goldberg said in response.
“Yes, well, you could say that,” Jones replied. “But he might not have been convicted because he didn’t do it.”
That “might not have been” has now gone out the window, given the photos and Hardy’s general statement of regret. But it’s still not changing how the team views Hardy.
It’s not changing how the team views Hardy because, in every sport at every level, excuses are made for the stars and examples are made of the scrubs. If you have any doubts about that, look no farther than how the Cowboys handled Hardy, and how they handled Joseph Randle.
