The ongoing saga of the Dallas Cowboys pretending they’re not employing and enabling a dangerously violent person continued on Sunday, as the talented-yet-unstable Greg Hardy shoved and intimidated his special teams coach after the Cowboys gave up an eventual game-winning kick return touchdown to the New York Giants. Since it was a stark example of just what kind of person the Cowboys hired, the media took the opportunity to force Cowboys leadership to once again either cop to the fact that they tacitly endorse Hardy’s behavior, or bury their heads in the sand. And guess which option owner Jerry Jones chose.
Watch the reporter's face in the background while Jerry Jones calls Greg Hardy a "real leader" pic.twitter.com/oHgbEDgf3i
— Jawn Gonzalez (@JohnGonzalez) October 26, 2015
No, Jerry, Hardy bullying a smaller man is not “being a real leader.” What Dez Bryant did immediately after is what real leaders do. That heated argument, we now know, was Bryant taking Hardy to task over his actions.
The reporter who couldn’t help but smell Jones’ sh*t was Sports Illustrated‘s Jenny Vrentas, who had this to say about the owner’s comments:
Jones called Hardy, "one of the real leaders on the this team," which is perhaps not surprising that he would say, but hard to understand.
— Jenny Vrentas (@JennyVrentas) October 26, 2015
Implicit in these actions are the Cowboys coldly choosing on-field production over character as the requirement for a place in their organization. There’s nothing Jones can really say about Hardy that won’t be hogwash besides, “Listen, we know he’s a bad guy, but as long as he’s not getting arrested he gets sacks, so he plays.” That’s essentially what Hardy said himself. That’s why forcing Jones and head coach Jason Garrett to talk about Hardy over and over again is important — they know they’re lying, or at the very least spewing nonsense. The hope is that they’ll get tired over his headaches and cut him loose, so that Hardy knows he at least has to pretend to change.
