Doomed to Repeat It: The Greg Hardy Story
- Thread starter soxhop411
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I was hoping for some acknowledgment of twice evading a "begs the question" penalty, at the very least.
Here's why:
1) They famously failed to appropriately discipline a player who assaulted a woman, which led to the worst PR scandal in League history.
2) Greg Hardy is a domestic abuser they attempted to discipline outside the CBA.
3) The League's suspension of the player was rebuked by its own hand-picked arbitrator.
4) The player was signed by one of the most visible and popular teams in the NFL.
5) The player has been an unrepentant asshole – fighting with his teammates and coaches, tweeting garbage about his legal problems, making vaguely threaten comments about the wife of most popular player in the League.
6) The team's owner has enabled the player at every turn and not only does not appear to have any interest in cutting ties with him but actually is trying to lock him up for years to come.
All of which is to say, the NFL has every reason to want Hardy to go away – and basically has no recourse left. He is absolute poison. Every time Hardy's name is mentioned—and as discussed on a few other threads the Cowboys have been on at least 5 nationally televised games already—it reinforces every thing people don't like about the NFL. That it is misogynistic and anti-woman. That it is dangerous and violent. And perhaps worst of all, that it is soulless and maybe even a little evil – that makes a big show of morality ("No More") but looks the other way at every opportunity the moment a dollar is to be made ("What's wrong with a little more?"). And now, this guy is going to be as much of a topic of conversation as as Donald Frigging Trump when people sit down with their family over Thanksgiving.
So to me, there's no reason for this to be some rogue League official. This has all the makings of a fucking disaster of epic proportions and the League has every right to be terrified of where this leads.
And of course, being the NFL, they manage to make themselves look even worse with how incredibly impotent they were during the hearing. If the leak wa to show "hey we really tried this time!" But after reading the transcript I know I went away thinking, no you really didn't.
“@ProFootballTalk: Greg Hardy was late to work and missed meetings last week (such that the Cowboys would care about that) https://t.co/K5hpF3SXgf
What a leader!
What a leader!
The older Jerry Jones gets, the more he reminds me of Al Davis later in his life. At one point, Al was truly a visionary and was smarter than almost everyone else in football (which is not like Jones, in any way). As he got older, he took even more chances on talented players with shady characters and overpaid for free agents. He also minimized the draft. This is exactly what Jerry Jones is doing. Above all, Al never disciplined his star players but instead enabled them, and it really hurt the overall team. Clearly, Jerry is taking the same approach.
All of which is to say, things could get a lot worse before they get better. Al sunk the Raiders for a full decade or more, and in some ways they are still recovering.
All of which is to say, things could get a lot worse before they get better. Al sunk the Raiders for a full decade or more, and in some ways they are still recovering.
Al Davis's 1970s Raiders teams were built on enabling "talented players with shady pasts". John Madden is beloved largely because he coached that group of ruffians to success.
I think you are off-base comparing Al Davis to Jerry Jones. I do appreciate that you made clear that Jones knows about 1/1000000th about football that Davis did.
Al got old, and made bad decisions trying to win more more Super Bowl after the Tuck Rule and Gruden/Tampa stuff. It did really hurt the franchise but for guy who had nearly 50 years in the NFL, his worst stretch came at the end. Everyone loses their fastball at some point.
Jerry Jones has never had a fastball, or made good decisions and owes all of his football success to Jimmy Johnson. His "approach" is very dissimilar to Davis's and Jerry's issues are entirely different.
So yeah, the two old guys are both old. Past that, there's little comparison to be made here.
Jerry's much more like Donald Sterling, except Sterling didn't go to college with Jimmy Johnson.
I think you are off-base comparing Al Davis to Jerry Jones. I do appreciate that you made clear that Jones knows about 1/1000000th about football that Davis did.
Al got old, and made bad decisions trying to win more more Super Bowl after the Tuck Rule and Gruden/Tampa stuff. It did really hurt the franchise but for guy who had nearly 50 years in the NFL, his worst stretch came at the end. Everyone loses their fastball at some point.
Jerry Jones has never had a fastball, or made good decisions and owes all of his football success to Jimmy Johnson. His "approach" is very dissimilar to Davis's and Jerry's issues are entirely different.
So yeah, the two old guys are both old. Past that, there's little comparison to be made here.
Jerry's much more like Donald Sterling, except Sterling didn't go to college with Jimmy Johnson.
They could be 2-8 going into Thanksgiving against an undefeated team. This is tele-diagnosis at its worst, but it seems that the more clusterfucky the season gets for Dallas, the more likely Hardy is to redline on the field.
It's included under the Jimmy J. banner, but you almost have to mention the Herschel Walker trade separately as Jerry landing ass backwards into tremendous luck that set up the Cowboys for their SB runs.
You don't think the signing of troubled players and, more so, the enabling of such players even as they are cancerous to the team is similar?
If not, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Yes, the 70's Raiders had talented players with shady pasts, but the difference is those players took care of their football obligations. They may have done stuff away from the field, but when they were all about winning first while playing. The players Al started signing in the 90's and 2000's were no longer like this: their off field issues affected the team. It's quite possible some of this was due to the culture and media coverage of football changing, more so than the players themselves, but Al ignored this and kept being Al. I see Jerry the same way.
I'm not going to "agree to disagree" on an issue where you are mis-stating facts to fit your theory.
If you want to claim the 90s & 2000s Raiders "didn't take care of their football obligations" you need to cite some sources. Further, if you want to claim the 70s Raiders didn't get into trouble off-field, you need to invent a time machine and change a very-documented past.
See Jerry anyway you want - you are correct that he's an idiot. But you don't seem to know jack or shit about Al Davis, the Raiders or what you're talking about here.
The signing of troubled players to unsuccessful teams is a facial and facile similarity. The shortcomings that led to Davis's football demise were a bug; with Jones they are a feature. Al Davis was an ahead-of-his-time football innovator who as said above, simply got old / suffered as the game passed him by.
Jerry Jones played guard at Arkansas and has lots of money. Unlike Davis, Jones's problems today are not about age, infirmity, or anachronism. They are the same problems that have plagued him since his first days with the Cowboys. He is healthy and charging full-steam ahead.
Al Davis once knew what to do with a stopwatch. Bob Kraft eventually learned to stop using one. Jerry Jones has learned nothing.
Jerry Jones played guard at Arkansas and has lots of money. Unlike Davis, Jones's problems today are not about age, infirmity, or anachronism. They are the same problems that have plagued him since his first days with the Cowboys. He is healthy and charging full-steam ahead.
Al Davis once knew what to do with a stopwatch. Bob Kraft eventually learned to stop using one. Jerry Jones has learned nothing.
That escalated quickly. The racontuer description under your name seems quite apt.
I don't care to cite sources. This is a message board, not an academic paper, nor is this Cowboys thread the appropriate place to go into detail on the Raiders organization of the past. I was simply trying to make the point that Al's stubbornness and inability to change, particularly through the (mis)evaluation of players and his constant enabling of them doomed the Raiders for many years, and I see Jerry Jones doing the same thing. In particular, the Greg Hardy acquisition and enabling suggests that Jones doesn't care about the countless negatives Hardy brings to both the franchise and the team as long as he generates pass rush on the field, which is related to this thread. More importantly, it's microcosm that is problematic for the current Cowboys and, unless things change, the franchise moving forward.
I agree with you. All I'm trying to do is convince soxfan121 that the 2002 Raiders Superbowl season is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Football acumen has *always* been Jerry Jones's problem. I think that's the disagreement here. Other than hiring Jimmy Johnson, Jerry Jones has never, not for a minute, known what he was doing when it came time to deal with the football side of his football team. Al Davis got old and shitty. Jerry Jones is old and shitty. But Jerry Jones has always been shitty. Ditching Jimmy Johnson comes from the same fountain of stupid as does the stubborn enabling & praising of Hardy.
Sox and Rocks stated "they may have done stuff away from the field" so your comment above is pretty disingenuous.
As someone who doesn't know, I'd personally like to have some examples or descriptions that would allow me to assess whether or not the '80s and '90s Raiders players let their off the field shit interfere with their on the field play or not.
And no, we don't need an academic dissertation style bibliography, but, as E5 was getting at, even a suggestion of something to use for criteria to use to assess the position would be nice. Different people put in different levels of work in explanation, sure, but we do strive to move beyond "take my word for it here."
And no, we don't need an academic dissertation style bibliography, but, as E5 was getting at, even a suggestion of something to use for criteria to use to assess the position would be nice. Different people put in different levels of work in explanation, sure, but we do strive to move beyond "take my word for it here."
Wait a minute. I thought Jones essentially made the key personnel decisions for the Cowboys. And, correct me if I'm wrong, they've had a fairly talented roster, no? This isn't Hugh Millen/Detroit levels of incompetence, far from it, and that seems to be where you're heading with this.
Now, is Jones a first-class douchenozzle, and has he undermined his team and coaching staff by weeding out those who can say no to him, and through his other actions (like in the Hardy case)? Absolutely. But I just don't see the total level of incompetence you're portraying.
We can acknowledge that he's not a HoF owner and innovator like Al Davis without insisting he's Marge Schott.
Imagine how Jones would have looked these past 10 years if he didn't have Romo as the QB? Man, with him off the field, this team doesn't have a pot to piss in.
Paging @Bosoxen or @Greg29fan or any Cowboys fan to the courtesy phone. I repeat, any Cowboys fan...please pick up the courtesy phone. Thank you.
Matt Millen. Hugh Millen's incompetence was limited to playing QB for the Pats.
Jerrah has plenty of input obviously but not as much as say ten years ago as Stephen Jones negotiates most of the contracts now. Will McClay, who is the assistant director of player personnel, is also involved.
McClay and Stephen also run much of the draft - exhibit A being not drafting Johnny Football. When Jerrah had full control - he's playing QB for the Cowboys right now (or still in rehab).
I agree---but that requirement is every bit as much true of soxfan121's comments up above as Sox and Rocks isn't it? Look at how he characterized the Raiders teams in post 110--no cites. Saying 'show your work' shouldn't be a one-way standard, and it isn't an excuse for mischaracterizing someone else's posts, no matter how silly you may find them.
Thanks. The back-and-forth on this is good reading.
I don't think anyone ever claimed Millen level of mishaps. And I don't think the frequent comparisons to Snyder are fair because Jerry had great success early on.
But the juvenile insistence that anyone could coach this team, and the ego battle that broke out with Jimmy, hurt them very, very badly for a long time.
My sense is that Jerry is more hands off on a lot more things, deferring to his son and others. When when the GFIN bug bites him, as it did this year, he probably is incapable of restraint on big impact acquisitions
I don't see any of this as a knock on Jerry Jones. Every GM has a team of people and can delegate responsibilities as he sees fit. And clearly, Jerry is the one hiring these guys, so if he's hiring good people and listening to them, I don't see what the problem is. I'm hardly nominating him for Executive of the Year or anything, but he's nowhere near late-career-Al-Davis levels of incompetence.
Fair enough. Roughly .500 post Switzer SB, missed the playoffs more than they made it. But not abject suckitude.
I am more than happy to provide citations upon request. Post #110/#114 should be more than fully explained by these sources - admittedly you might need to get to a library or use the Amazon link above to fully delve into the topic but its worth the time to learn about Al Davis, one of the most brilliant and interesting people in football history.
http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/08/27/the-oakland-raiders-rebels-misfits-progressives/
Further, there's no "mischaracterizing" in post #110. There are facts, and anyone can look them up. I didn't ask Sox & Jocks to "show his work" in that post - only after he doubled-down in #113 was he asked to support his (obviously incorrect) claims in #114.
He made an invalid comparison between Davis & Jones. I - and another member - disputed that. S&J then fired back with "agree to disagree" (which is always a load of crap) and more inaccurate information. And when asked for sources, S&J claims not to care about sources because this is "just a message board."
PKB, please cite for everyone in the audience when posters haven't been required to show their work on SoSH. You've been here as long as I have...when, exactly, were posters allowed to make shit up and have opinions unsupported by data/facts?
As I noted in post 125, you mischaracterized what Sox and Rocks actually said about the Raiders off-field activities.
I have never claimed what you suggest above about the standards here, and you seem to be missing my point.
There has always been a mix of opinion and citation around here and I think that's healthy (so long as there's a balance and a desire to explore information and the bases for opinions) because there are limits to people's time. We can, collectively I think, distinguish between someone who has taken the time to document their opinion and someone who has not, and for the many of us who have been here a long time we've built up histories and reputations (in whatever direction) as well.
I have no problem with people asking 'what's the basis of that?' if someone disagrees with or is curious about something; however, a pattern of attacking people with 'what's your source?' as a way to shout down any differing opinion is not a road I think we benefit from going down.
Did I mention any names in my post? Hell, did I even quote a post or refer to a specific one?
Or did I make a general statement that alluded to how I thought information is conveyed effectively such that people can be more secure in the authoritative nature of its content?
I mean, I get that there is madness, but there is also method.
Look man, except in truly extreme cases, I care much less about attitude than I do information, and that's traditionally how this place has been modded.
The best response to "prove it" is to do so. Always has been, always will be.
I don't really give much of a crap about any of the rest of the, well, crap. And I mean, I get why you might have a personality problem with some posters, but then take it to PMs--we don't need anyone standing up for "not explaining the position" and "not invoking data" here. I get the emotional response, but it just doesn't help what some of us are trying to accomplish, yeah?
This is but one chapter in the Jerry Jones story. There are several others. There was the firing of Jimmy Johnson, the trade for Joey Galloway, the drafting of Quincy Carter and other well-documented dumbfuckery. The only reason this team is where it is today is because Bill Parcells built a foundation upon which Stephen and McClay built the current team. And yet, as was alluded to earlier, this team is still completely and utterly fucked without Romo.
Jerry Jones is many things but Al Davis is not one of them. The similarities begin and end with their nightmarish appearance and their eccentricity. Al Davis could have shit a better plan to build a football team than Jerry could ever muster. That he eventually lost his fastball and his mind has nothing to do with Jones.
Finally, let's not forget that Jerry and Jimmy presided over the Michael Irvin shenanigans. So Jerry has had a nice, long history of enabling shitty behavior. Adam Jones, Tank Johnson and Greg Hardy are but data points in that history.
The Hardy saga makes me think of Belichick. I think it was in one of the Holley books, where they explained that while a DC with the Giants he saw how star players were enabled (especially Lawrence Taylor) and that he thought that was how you did it. Then with the Browns as a HC he tried the same approach before realizing it was a mistake. Unfortunately he was fired before he was able to act on the lesson learned.
This then led to the development of his brand of team building that in many ways abandons the star system.
This then led to the development of his brand of team building that in many ways abandons the star system.
As a proud southerner he's mostly right. When he says homes he's not including trailers and trailer parks
Does this remind anyone else of the Cyclops scene from The Odyssey?
Mike LeslieVerified account @MikeLeslieWFAA 12m12 minutes ago
Hardy on why Ray Rice didn't get another chance, but he did: "It's the story of an innocent man and a guilty man."
Yah... Hardy is a despicable human
that interview was extremely uncomfortable to watch
Hardy on why Ray Rice didn't get another chance, but he did: "It's the story of an innocent man and a guilty man."
Yah... Hardy is a despicable human
that interview was extremely uncomfortable to watch
Here is the first part of the interview, which ESPN has split into multiple parts for some reason
@uncannymanny