Does Greg Hardy deserve another chance in the NFL? I think it’s safe to say that most people would say no given his abusive history of everyone from his teammates and coaches to his girlfriends.
In fact, no football league seems interested in bringing Hardy in. The Indoor Football League (which could really use the press that would come along with signing a player like Hardy) wasn’t even interested. The IFL’s Salt Lake Screaming Eagles considered signing Hardy but put the decision to a fan vote. The fans voted no by a very slim margin.
“It’s not something I’m not used to,” said Hardy of the fan vote. “But why they would just put it out there like that, especially when I’m coming to [the Spring League]?”
People, especially those who have lived through it, have a hard time looking past Hardy’s history of domestic violence. The former Pro Bowler still insists they’re making a big deal out of nothing, however.
“It’s not really that hard,” said Hardy when asked about looking beyond his past. “I’m kind of on the black side of things right now, with the perception of my persona,” said Hardy. “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.”
Sadly, while Hardy is plotting his NFL return, teams seem to be showing at least some minimal interest, ignoring his history of being just as terrible of a teammate as a person.
“I didn’t come specifically to see him, but watching him play I was like, ‘Okay, not bad,’” said an AFC scout at the Spring League. “His abilities in the past have basically no bearing on his current value, so I’m saying to myself, ‘Let me see how he plays.’”
Whether Hardy actually has an NFL future in him is still up in the air. His brief time with the Dallas Cowboys showed an immense slowdown in his previous production from his time with the Carolina Panthers.
And, there’s the not-so-small problem of him constantly getting arrested or charged with something.
Ironically enough, he had no problem calling his ex, Nicole Holder, a “psycho nympho” back in 2015.
But, hey. If the 2017 NFL Draft taught us anything, it’s that some teams are desperate enough to do anything.