Katie Nolan Challenges Greg Hardy, Media And The NFL To Do Better

When the Dallas Cowboys take the field on Sunday for their fifth game of the year, they’ll be joined by Greg Hardy, the 27-year-old defensive end who was suspended for the first quarter of the season after he was convicted of assaulting and threatening to kill a former girlfriend.

When speaking to reporters after his first practice Wednesday, Hardy did little to nothing to make it seem he was remorseful for his actions. 

Tired of the defensive end's attitude and what she sees as the media, Cowboys and NFL's implicit support for him, Fox Sports 1 television host Katie Nolan decided she's had enough on Wednesday. In a blistering monologue, Nolan called out all parties involved for how they have repeatedly mishandled Hardy's situation. 

"Greg Hardy had to pretend to respect women for 12 minutes. Just 12 minutes. And he couldn’t even do that," she said at one point. 

Nolan stressed the unseemliness of Hardy using the phrase “I hope I come out guns blazing” to describe his excitement for Sunday’s contest, citing the reported incident of Hardy throwing his girlfriend onto “a couch covered in assault rifles ” as proof of the statement’s impropriety. 

Hardy -- just months removed from the domestic violence charges -- delivered the comments with a chuckle.

"That [response] is baffling to me, and not just as a woman, but as a person who majored in public relations,” Nolan said on her show Wednesday. “How do you let that comment happen? Oh, I’m sorry, not just let it happen, publish it on the league’s official website, endorsing it with your precious shield, which, oh, I noticed has a pink ribbon on it this month because you care about women. That’s cool, thanks.”

In a similar vein, when Hardy was asked by media members about facing the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady on Sunday, he spun the question on its head, electing to discuss Tom Brady’s supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen  rather than on-field strategy for stopping the quarterback.

“I love seeing Tom Brady , he’s cool as crap,” Hardy answered. “Have you seen his wife? I hope she comes to the game. I hope her sister comes to the game, all her friends come to the game. One of my favorite games of the year, guys.” 

Nolan fired back with this, some of which is aforementioned:

Greg Hardy had to pretend to respect women for 12 minutes. Just 12 minutes. And he couldn’t even do that. And what’s worse, no one stopped him. They let him go on about girlfriends and guns, and posted a video of it on DallasCowboys.com, because who f***ing cares -- women won’t see it, women only care about football during those events … where they [get told] what to cook on game day."

Finally, at the close of her monologue, Nolan took issue with a reporter asking Hardy whether he considers Jacksonville Jaguars’ “quarterback Blake Bortles’ significant other attractive” -- a comment that not only places ostensible value on Hardy’s opinion of women, but also seemingly condones his continual objectification of the opposite sex.

Christ, guys. Enough. Enough. … It’s just like what are we f***ing doing, what matters to you? Seriously, what matters to you? Because expecting a garbage human, who has been punished for being garbage, to come back from his suspension and not immediately resume being garbage is asking the bare minimum. And if me asking that the league and the Cowboys and their PR people and the media could act with just a shred of human decency is ruining football for you, then I’m disappointed I guess in how much we’re willing to accept in order to protect our precious Sundays.

It’s hard to argue with that.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said that Hardy is a defensive back, when he is actually a defensive end. 

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