Despite the emergence of a report on Tuesday alleging that Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy was "losing his will" to fight the NFL over his 10-game suspension, a more recent report from Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com, suggests that's simply not the case.
"A source close to Hardy tells PFT that Hardy will challenge in court an arbitration ruling that imposes anything more than a two-game suspension against Hardy for violation the Personal Conduct Policy."
Considering Hardy's current suspension is 10-games and the best-case scenario would probably be the league dropping it to six or eight-games, Florio's report is essentially suggesting that a court battle between Hardy and the league is all but certain at this point.
"Greg has every intention of taking whatever legal steps are necessary," the source said, per Florio. "Nothing has changed on our end."
The report on Tuesday indicated that Hardy simply wanted the entire ordeal to be over and done with and, further, suggested that should the league drop the suspension by at least a couple of games, Hardy was willing to forego the potential legal recourse available to him and would simply serve the suspension.
Hardy, per the report, told interested teams like the Cowboys while he was making his free agent rounds in March that he was willing to fight tooth and nail to ensure that he's on the field for as many games as possible in 2015. The protracted process of his suspension and appeal in the interim was said to have taken a fair amount of wind out of his sails.
Instead, it seems, according to Florio's source, that not only has Hardy's will to fight not wavered, it has, in fact, been strengthened by the 40-plus day delay in the issuance of a decision from hearing officer Harold Henderson in Hardy's appeal case.
"Greg has nothing to lose by fighting," the source told Florio.
