Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones released a statement saying the team never had access to the Greg Hardy's domestic violence case photos, but "entered into the agreement with Greg fully understanding that there would be scrunity and criticism," according to NFL reporter Ian Rapoport.
The Cowboys my have never seen the photos associated with Hardy's domestic violence case, but the NFL did before suspending Hardy for 10 games, according to Mark Maske of the Washington Post.
On Friday photos emerged of injuries suffered by Hardy's former girlfriend, which led to him initially being found guilty of threatening and assaulting his former girlfriend. Hardy appealed the ruling and the charges were dropped, as his former girlfriend reportedly refused to cooperate and reportedly had a financial settlement with Hardy, according to Maske.
Hardy's suspension was reduced from 10 games to four by arbitrator Harold Henderson, but it is unknown if Henderson had any knowledge of the photos. Rapoport used his twitter account to post a document, which states why the Cowboys were not allowed to see the photos. While the Cowboys never saw the photographs before signing Hardy, they did reportedly read very vivid descriptions of them, according to Rapoport. In a somewhat similar situation, the Baltimore Ravens cut Ray Rice within about eight hours of his domestic violence video being shown to the public, according to Darin Gannt of Pro Football Talk.
Hardy is a productive player, but people are and have been asking if is this a player the Cowboys want to support. Dallas plays the Eagles Sunday night, and it will be interesting to see how Cowboys fans react when Hardy takes the field.
