Toucher & Rich: Greg Hardy Is A Complete Idiot
BOSTON (CBS) -- Greg Hardy is not only a bad person; he's also a dumb person.
That was Toucher & Rich's takeaway from the free-agent pass rusher's sit-down interview with ESPN's Adam Schefter.
Fred and Rich found themselves equally critical of both Hardy and Schefter after listening to the interview.
Hardy said of his history with domestic violence: "That's a situation that's in my past. And I feel like, as a grown man and as a football player of my caliber, there are situations inside that situation where it has nothing to do with the situation. But I could've done better. I should have done better."
"That's a lot of situations," Rich said.
When Schefter reminded Hardy that he was actually found guilty on two counts of domestic violence, Hardy replied, "That's a special North Carolina thing" and that the verdict was only a result of "miscommunication."
Hardy then turned himself into the victim.
"That's in the past, and that's something that I came out of, still suffering repercussions from it," Hardy said. "I fight it on the day to day, dealing with the people, and my family, and having to be a leper, of sort."
It was here that Fred saw the predetermined message from Hardy and his reps poke through.
"He's obviously gotten the talking points that family and how unfair it is to be treated like a pariah," Fred said, "[to try to get people to say] 'Oh, well in fairness, Greg Hardy's not being treated very nicely ... in his gated community.'"
Though Schefter got some credit for pressing Hardy with some "tough questions," the delivery was beyond robotic.
"Schefter has an interviewing style that is really natural. It's almost like a conversation ... if a conversation was being read uncomfortably off a teleprompter," Fred said.
"It's like the male version of Siri," Rich said. "Like a robot. ... I would say Siri even flows better than Adam Schefter. Adam Schefter now sounds like a Frank Caliendo imitation of Adam Schefter."
"So Schefter has got a page in front of him with questions, and he's just going to stick to that script? He's not going to veer and ask any follow-ups," Fred said. "Excellent job."
Back to Hardy, he couldn't even express any remorse or regret, but instead spoke only about his goals on the football field.
"It hurts me and my family when people take me like that, as a criminal and a monster, when I just want to be better," Hardy said. "I want to set records. I want to chase the dream, I want to be a part of a team, and just give me a shot to just step up and break records and work harder than everybody else and myself."
"He's got to work harder than himself," Fred said. "This whole redemption project of, 'Hey, this assault thing is all about him wanting to become a better football player.' Come on. Like, 'I wanna be good at football'? OK. ... I would make the talking points to have nothing to do with football. I would make them about personal redemption. But he keeps saying, 'I want to play football and break records.' That's like saying, 'All right, you killed a guy,' and you respond, 'Yeah, but I've always wanted to be an astronaut. Can't I just be an astronaut? This is really holding me back. I want to be an astronaut.' ... That's not the point, man. The point is, you're trying to get over personally, and now you're bringing football in, like, 'I want to play football and make money.' OK -- well, that's not why we're having this conversation. This is a step in the process."
And then, Hardy just got plain silly.
"In my opinion, [people believed I hit a woman] maybe because it's easy, maybe because I gave them opportunity to say these things about me with my actions that were not what they say they were, but actions that put me in that situation and in that light," Hardy told Schefter. "And pretty much speculation -- just like it could be speculated that an invincible mythological sea creature with white eyes."
"That's a good point," Rich admitted. "You make a good point."
When asked about the alleged victim not showing up in court, Hardy donned his lawyer clothes and answered thusly: "To the language of it is 'dismissed with prejudice,' so I think that has something to do with evidence or something ... of that nature that they can't continue with the case, and that's why I got out of it. Other than that, with my agent I just sit back and give you the truth that I know to be the truth and let God take control of it."
Hardy was also asked about his comments about Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady's wife, as well as his comments about coming out "guns blazing." Hardy said that was just his public persona talking.
"I put myself in a situation where I can be attacked. Like I said, in my head at the time, I'm an entertainer, I don't do interviews, and I do the interviews, I try to be entertaining, and I just don't remember my situation when I'm being an entertainer. There's a line that as 'The Kraken,' five years, you, it's definitely, and it's ingrained, and you know where the line is officially, and two years out, coming back, I just couldn't see that line," Hardy said. "And being a Cowboy, just thinking about Cowboys, guns blazing, trying to entertain, man. Just trying to make the fans laugh and smile. I got caught up in that situation, and Tom Brady's wife had nothing to do with the situation. She's pretty, she's Gisele, and just hope she comes to the game, I hope everybody comes is what I said at the end, to watch me play."
After playing the interview, T&R played audio of Adam Schefter on the Dan Patrick Show. Schefter didn't do himself any favors with that interview.
"I went in there with the idea that everybody had -- that this guy is a monster. OK? I went in there thinking this is one of the scariest people in the NFL. ANd I came out of there with a very different feeling about him," Schefter said. "I came out of there with a feeling that this is a guy who has managed to say the wrong things at the wrong times, has not always made the right decisions, but I found him to be a changed kind of guy."
Fred said that reaction from Schefter is what you'd expect from someone who never interacts with people.
"You can tell the depths of Schefter's relationships with people in general, how in depth he gets psychologically with these players. All his work is done -- it's never been more apparent that it's all done over text. He never has human interaction. If he came out of that garbled mess of idiocy that interview was, and he was blown away by the humanity, that's a man who lives his life just completely digitally, that never has any face-to-face interactions with any depth with any of the people he's covering."
Fred continued: "That he came out of that interview thinking anything except that [Hardy] was stupid, is crazy. Hardy probably shook his hand, told him that he looked nice, that he's a fan. And Schefter probably said, 'Yeah ... OK.'"
Patrick pressed Schefter to answer whether or not he believed Hardy. Schefter answered: "In regards to that incident, it's such a tough thing. I'd like to talk to more people before I made a judgment. All I can go by is what he said. I'll say this: he wasn't wavering. He was adamant -- 'I. Never. Touched. This. Woman.'"
"Oh, there you go. Get him on a jury -- he'll let anyone off," Fred said. "'Well, the guy said it!' Just show a little bit of balls. You're asked a question; you just interviewed the guy. Just say, 'I don't think he did it.' Don't say, 'Oh, one thing's for sure -- he's adamant about it!' Well what did you expect, hard-hitter? Did you think you were going to trap him into something with your reading the questions and asking no follow-ups and having no kind of dialogue? Is that what the whole idea was? Wow, he cracked that code. And it was awful -- Hardy came off terribly. Awful. It wasn't even vanilla; it was awful."
Listen to the full breakdown of the disastrous interview below:
