The former Carolina Panther and new Dallas Cowboy has just been suspended for the first 10 games of the 2015 season by the NFL. Hardy has appealed the penalty. Of course he has. He'd be crazy not to. And you know what? The league's going to lose this case when it comes before an arbitrator -- and rightly so.
No ruling body, be it the government, a corporation, or a sports league, can make new rules and then apply them retroactively to things that (allegedly) occurred before the rules were in place. This would be like the state of Michigan randomly fining bars and restaurants because they USED to allow smoking before the ban went into effect. A preposterous premise that any judge would toss out of court in a heartbeat.
But that's what the NFL is doing in the Hardy case. One would think they'd learn. After all, precedents have already been set. I'll get back to that.
Consider what allegedly occurred that got Hardy into this mess. He was accused of assaulting and threatening to kill his former girlfriend and found guilty by a judge in North Carolina. But North Carolina, like any other state, rightfully allows a defendant to appeal such a conviction. Hardy did. When all was said and done, the original charges were dismissed against Hardy. In other words, according to the law, he's innocent.
That opens up another can of worms. Since when should the NFL be allowed to further discipline players for incidents that may -- or may not -- have happened off the field? If such an incident is not job-related an employer has no business imposing a random punishment on an employee. That's what the legal system is for. To do so would seem to constitute "double jeopardy".
Sure, if a teacher has a sexual encounter with a student or a bus driver gets popped for drunk driving, further employer sanctions are warranted. It could be considered job related. But if a construction worker partakes in a little hanky-panky with an 18 year old or an accountant gets cited for a DUI, it has nothing to do with their job performance. If they were both hard workers, do you really think their bosses would give them time off? And excuse me, but doesn't the NFL, by it's very definition, make billions off a very violent game? It's OK with them if bones are broken and ligaments get shredded on the field, but they want to step in and further hammer a guy because he slapped his girlfriend or switched his kid off the field? This is not to say it's right, but it IS to say it should be none of their business.
Of course we all remember the Ray Rice debacle. Once the "elevator tape" surfaced, the NFL had a huge PR disaster on their hands. The media and much of the public were outraged, but the NFL had already handed down their original penalty, and the matter had been settled in the courts. Caving to the pressure, however misguided, the NFL tried to re-zap Rice. They lost. The retroactive, double jeopardy thing. You can't do that. A neutral arbitrator rightly ruled against them.
And now comes Hardy, technically an innocent man. Roger Goodell and company banged him with a 10 game suspension. The NFL has to know, or certainly should, that such an arbitrary suspension won't hold up in the long run. Some say it could be reduced to 6 games. Truth is, the entire suspension should be thrown out, and might well be. Again, you can't make up new rules and retroactively apply them, especially against a guy that had his original charges dismissed by the prosecutors and the court. It's a ridiculous stance to take and the NFL is surely, well, let's hope, smart enough to realize it. So why would they do such a thing?
Because Goodell and his merry band of enforcers found themselves between a rock and a hard place. To roll over and do nothing to Hardy would surely expose them to media hysteria and millions of arm-chair prosecutors sniping away. Another PR disaster. If nothing else, the NFL is image conscious these days. Better to take a stance that will keep the savages at bay, even if they know it will fail in the end. Let an arbitrator overrule them. At least they tried -- right?
But that's the thing. By pursuing such a futile action, the NFL exposes itself as being incompetent. Why pay lawyers millions of dollars to argue a case they already know they can't win? But that's the way it works these days. Better to appear politically correct on a losing cause than step up and face reality. The NFL has $10 billion reasons why they're not worried about the stupid factor with their fans for the coming season. They will come in droves and gladly continue to pay ridiculous ticket prices to support outrageous player salaries and 10 bucks for a dime's worth of nasty beer. The stupid factor is a given and they know it.
Over the next few months Greg Hardy will twist in the wind, while the media snipers and arm-chair idiots continue to besmirch his name. Seems like everybody's a prosecutor these days. Never mind the facts, he must be guilty of SOMETHING.
It will take a while before this case is finally resolved, but it's 4 months before the 2015 NFL campaign gets serious. Plenty of time for an arbitrator to hear all the evidence, lack thereof, and make a final ruling.
Don't be surprised if Greg Hardy is suiting up for Game 1 as a Cowboy in September. And given all the above, he damn well should be.
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