Last week after Deadspin revealed photos and other details of Greg Hardy’s domestic assault case, which showed in terrifying specificity the violence inflicted on his ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder, the Cowboys defensive end issued a rote Twitter apology, one of his first attempts to display remorse for the incident. “Just had to say I express my regret 4 what happened in past and I’m Dedicated to being the best person & teammate that I can be,” he wrote.
It took less than five days for Hardy to once again reveal his true feelings about the incident: He’s not sorry. On Wednesday, Twitter user @AdamMumma89 pointed out that Hardy had changed his Twitter bio to apparently argue that he was “innocent until proven guilty” and blame “prejudicial treatment” and “discrimination” for the negative media reaction after the recent revelations about his case.
Hardy soon after changed his profile to a more innocuous message, an apparent reference to lyrics from the Tupac Shakur song “Hail Mary.”
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Cowboys coach Jason Garrett had spoken with Hardy about the Twitter incident, the fourth time they’ve had to have a chat about inappropriate on-the-field and off-the-field behavior with Hardy:
Asked if Hardy gets it considering Garrett has met with him multiple times, Garrett replied: “I think the biggest thing we try to do with any player is just address things when they come up and address them in-house. We deal with things inside these walls and then we move forward.”
But this is the fourth incident involving Hardy that Garrett had to addressed. It’s the second such with regards to Twitter, as Hardy made light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in a post during the draft.
Hardy has also had to meet with team officials after his initial news conference with the local media last month in which he made references to coming out “guns blazing” and joked about Tom Brady’s wife, super model Gisele Bundchen. Another meeting took place with Hardy following his sideline antics, which included a confrontation with teammates and special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia, in the Cowboys’ loss at the New York Giants late last month.
Hardy’s continued ugly personal conduct, including making a stripper-heavy rap video earlier this year, demonstrates he doesn’t “get it” and isn’t sorry. This latest incident is just the starkest recent example of this fact, which has been evident for a long time.
Someone who is sorry doesn’t fight charges in court rather than accepting a plea deal. Once convicted, someone who is sorry doesn’t appeal the conviction. Someone who is sorry doesn’t, according to prosecutors, pay off the victim, who then stops cooperating with law enforcement during the appeal process, which helps allow the charges to be dismissed. Someone who is sorry doesn’t then have his charges expunged from his record. And someone who is sorry doesn’t fight his 10-game league suspension and successfully have it reduced to four games. Finally, after the details of the alleged crime are exposed to the light of day, someone who is sorry does not again protest his innocence on Twitter and blame his critics for being prejudiced.
Doing all of these things were obviously Hardy’s legal right. But doing them also long ago proved that he has no true remorse for what happened to Nicole Holder. It also proves that the rationale of Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones for employing Hardy—that he deserves a “second chance”—is about as hollow as a Hardy apology.
