It seems like a matter of time before the polarizing Greg Hardy makes his NFL return.
Hardy spent last year with the Dallas Cowboys but wasn’t brought back. Jerry Jones had given the defensive end another chance, and while he was productive on the field, Hardy was involved in a handful of sideline scraps that garnered unwanted attention.
According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, agent Drew Rosenhaus says the NFL interest is there:
“There is some substantial team interest in Greg,” Drew Rosenhaus, Hardy’s agent, said Tuesday. “I do believe he will be signed in the near future by either a team that suffers an injury on the defensive line or a club that realizes it simply needs more talent on the defensive front.”
Anyone who understands how the preseason works knew this was a possibility, with training camp and exhibitions causing injuries and teams needing to fill holes with quality players.
Graziano goes on to mention teams such as the Jacksonville Jaguars and Washington Redskins have expressed interest as of late.
From a football standpoint it’s hard to blame those teams given Hardy’s talent on the field. But as the writeup chronicled, plenty of people in the league still have their reservations about Hardy:
“It’s not what happened in his past,” said one official whose team is not interested in Hardy. “It’s the way he reacted last year to everything that happened in his past that would concern me. If he’d been a model citizen and played at a high level, he’d still be in Dallas.”
It takes one major injury for a team believing itself on the cusp of something special to give Hardy a call. It’s a risk-reward balance only one team out of 32 decides it wants to take to make Rosenhaus’ statements ring true.
Which team pulls the trigger is what’s interesting. Keep Hardy in the back of the mind when injuries and roster moves occur over the next few weeks.