Jerry Jones comes to Greg Hardy’s defense after two reportedly meet
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones came to the defense of embattled defender Greg Hardy after their Week 11 win over the Miami Dolphins.
Although Jones wouldn’t talk about it specifically, he and Hardy met last Thursday — as ESPN first reported — to discuss Hardy’s behavior. Jones said that Hardy is trying to change for the better. And no surprise here: It comes off as another form of enabling of a player who believes he has done nothing wrong.
“He is aware that everything he does — his personality, his style, his enthusiasm — it’s all going to be interpreted negatively,” Jones said. “If he’s not aware of that, then he’s hurting a lot of people.
“I think he really gets that. We certainly feel that way. He understands it, and he has agreed to really work on it.”
This report comes on the heels of another one that dropped Sunday morning, before kickoff, from NFL’s Ian Rapoport that suggested Jones and the Cowboys might be inching away from the troubled Hardy.
More seriously, of course, Hardy was suspended by the NFL for the first four games this season for violating the league’s personal conduct policy with his involvement during an alleged domestic violence incident from 2014. The story was churned up when Deadspin released graphic photos of the bruised body of Hardy’s alleged victim.
Since that story came out two weeks ago, Hardy has missed or been late to team meetings, including missing a meeting and practice that he and Jones reportedly met. The topic of releasing Hardy has been discussed, but he’s too valuable — unlike other troubled ex-Cowboys such as Joseph Randle, Christine Michael and Corey White, who committed missteps of varying degrees before being released this season.
Why? Because Hardy is good at football. And there was Jones making excuses for his team’s best pass rusher, who started Sunday, had two tackles, two quarterback hits and half a sack.
“I will say this: Over the last three or four weeks, I would hate to see anybody who had more pressure on him than Hardy,” Jones said. “There is a genuine effort for him to rehab what is the perception of him.”
Yes, the man who changed his Twitter bio to claim his innocence and who no-commented his way through an earlier-season interview with the media and who also said he “didn’t want to reminisce about the past” when asked about the allegations against him … yes, that player is seeking to clease his image, per Jones.
We’ll believe it when we see it.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
