Guns on the Futon
Last week, recently-signed Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy had his suspension reduced from ten games to four. He is inarguably a dominant talent, one that will immediately improve a weak Cowboys defensive line. I am a tireless supporter of the Dallas Cowboys. Therefore, this news of a reduced suspension should get me revved up and ready for my guys to be even better than last year.
But I am not revved up. How can I be happy for Greg Hardy, considering what he did to get in this mess in the first place?
Without going into too much gruesome detail, given the depressing nature of the situation, Greg Hardy was charged last year with domestic abuse by his long-time girlfriend, Nicole Holder. Here are some of the things that happened on the night in question, according to Holder:
- Hardy backhanded her, threw her around the room, grabbed a necklace off her neck and flushed it down the toilet
- When Holder tried to grab the necklace out of the toilet, Hardy slammed the toilet lid on her arm
- Hardy strangled her and threatened to kill her
- Hardy threw Holder onto a nearby futon, on which lay four legally-owned assault rifles
Okay, so maybe I went into gruesome detail. But I feel like I need to, in order to express the disappointment I feel over the NFL arbiter’s decision to reduce Hardy’s suspension.
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You undoubtedly recall the “Deflategate” controversy of a few months ago that got the entire country talking, even those who know nothing about pro football. Sure, Tom Brady might have known something about balls not being inflated to the correct pressure. Sure, he might have dodged questions about it. His team won 45–7 in a game where they barely threw the ball, nullifying the supposed advantage gained from their “cheating.” For this egregious offense, Tom Brady was suspened for four games.
Nevermind that they are currently reviewing Brady’s appeal and might reduce his suspension to two games. As it currently stands, both Tom Brady and Greg Hardy are suspended for an equal amount of time.
Anyone who believes that the crimes of Tom Brady and Greg Hardy deserve equal punishment is a monster.
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Greg Hardy threatened and terrorized a woman. He showed little to no regard for someone he loved. And like a typical abusive man, he never confessed to any of it and sent his legal team after his girlfriend. The charges never resulted in a trial, he likely settled out of court, and it’s all over.
The ten game-suspension certainly was a big one, but I did not have a problem with it, even after my Cowboys signed him. It felt like a fair price to pay for signing a person who obviously has no morals or decency. Seeing him sit out ten games and lose a significant amount of money might have been the only way I could go about rooting for him as a player, without being reminded of the nagging guilt in my head.
When Hardy’s reduced suspension was announced, I looked at tweets and Facebook comments and found no one that felt the same pit in my stomach. Immediate responses ranged from “Hell yeah, now we’re for sure gonna win the NFC East!” to “He should sue the NFL for wrongful damage and try to get it reduced to two games!”
I love watching pro football. I love watching my Cowboys. So do plenty of other people. But is it all so great that we can never take a step back and think about the human beings we’re watching, and the pain some of those humans inflict on their loved ones, or on complete strangers? Why do we put aside emotion and real life for the sake of having a defensive line that can more efficiently get after the quarterback? Why do we pretend that we’re watching fantasy gladiators on a fictionalized TV show, and that none of this is real life that matters?
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Football writer Chris B. Brown recently released a book called The Art of Smart Football. It contains breakdowns and explanations of all the different offensive and defensive schemes we see in the NFL, and it is written with the intention of helping the game make even more sense to laypeople like me. I have an urge to buy this book, not just to learn more about the game itself, but to bury my head in the sand and pretend that the league who runs the game is not a corrupt, morally-deprived organization that cares not a bit for the welfare of anyone other than those who make them more money. Reading this book sounds easier than confronting the way I really feel about how I spend my Sundays in the fall, and whether or not I should just quit the whole goddamn thing and tell the NFL to get lost forever.
I should just read a book, and forget any of this ever happened.
