Earlier this morning we shared this commentary from ESPN’s Wendi Nix sending a strong message to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and sponsors in the wake of the pictures from Greg Hardy’s assault case being made public. Nix stated what a lot of people around America were probably thinking, why do we need pictures to impact our opinion of Hardy and the Cowboys’ staunch defense of him:
“It’s lost on me this morning what’s changed? What’s changed? We saw pictures. Did you need to see pictures of a dead body to know what happened when Aaron Hernandez fire a bullet? I didn’t.”
This shows we learned nothing from the Ray Rice case, doesn’t it? There, it was the shocking video of him punching his partner in an elevator that finally awoke the NFL to the seriousness of domestic violence. The fact that we would need to do the same with Hardy, especially after he was found guilty on 2 counts of domestic violence, is a sad commentary in itself.
Well, apparently one of those people who did need to see the pictures to change his mind on Hardy was one of Nix’s colleagues – Stephen A. Smith. On the same ESPN airwaves, Smith pulled quite the 180 on his opinion on Greg Hardy.
In the wake of the photo release, an old tweet of Smith’s began making the rounds again. On October 27th, Smith tweeted this, obviously trying to stoke the fire to “embrace debate” about Hardy:
I completely support Jerry Jones & the @dallascowboys having Hardy on the team. What side are you on? pic.twitter.com/amFOhLdIjl
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) October 27, 2015
This weekend, after the photos were released, Smith said the Cowboys should cut Hardy immediately:
“Let’s understand what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about a guy here in Greg Hardy that doesn’t deserve to be on an NFL roster. He needs to be just cut immediately.”
Give all credit in the world to Hannah Storm for challenging Smith on his flip-flop and Smith trying to pass off his previous support for Hardy as basically saying, “Someone was going to sign him anyways, so it might as well have been the Cowboys.” That point proves the entire problem, doesn’t it?
Asking Stephen A. Smith to provide a credible opinion on domestic violence is like asking Sepp Blatter how to best stamp out corruption.
Smith was suspended by ESPN for a week after implying that women provoke domestic violence in the wake of the Ray Rice incident. He’s also been a staunch advocate and PR man for Floyd Mayweather. Smith is literally the last person that I’d want to hear offer any commentary whatsoever on this issue, but ESPN keeps trotting him out there anyways. I guess that’s the price you pay when your network is nothing but 24 hours of Stephen A. Smith.
