hepcat

I mean you bring up some great points - the details of what exactly happened haven't surfaced yet. But many, many NFL players and athletes worldwide have signed huge contracts and never dealt with a charge like this. Why is that? It was his choice to associate with a woman who would do this to him. No matter what happened this is a lapse in judgement on Hardy's part, either by who he associates with or what he did. Time will tell.

Well in terms of sheer numbers, Hardy is not under contract past this season. Johnson is. Either way that Ealy pick looks much better now and regardless of the outcome of the Hardy legal situation, his value for a contract extension just went down.

As long as Cam never does anything like this the Panthers will be fine. Hardy's replacement was just drafted anyway.

This definitely has the makings of a letdown game. They're at home and they are desperate. Panthers have never beat Miami. Sounds about right for the Panthers to win all the tough games, then come out against a mediocre, scandal-ridden Miami team and lay an egg.

I'm just hoping the era of blind loyalty is over. It has been killing the team for the last 5 years or so, all starting after the Panthers lost to Arizona in the playoffs. Jake Delhomme had one of the worst playoff performances in the history of the NFL, but still received a massive contract extension. In the following offseasons they re-signed most of the key players from that 2008 playoff team to massive contracts - Beason, D-Williams, J-Stew, Charles Johnson, among others. The trend has continued to coaches with Richardson keeping John Fox in a lame duck year in 2010, then keeping Rivera for an unnecessary extra season, crippling the team's development each time. Then Rivera not only retained but PROMOTED Shula in a trickle down effect. What's next...another season for Rivera? Breaking the bank to re-sign Brandon LaFell? A bigger contract for Greg Hardy than Charles Johnson got? With Gettleman in place I think player contracts will be more reasonable and cap friendly, but Richardson is still calling the shots as evidenced by Rivera being retained for a third year as head coach, even though he brought in a new GM. It might have been a money thing...since the team was in such bad shape financially after the 2012 season, he might have just mortgaged the season to see if Rivera could finally put it together while Gettleman cleaned up the cap so a new head coach to have some flexibility to bring in some of his own players. Time will tell.

Shut off the game, this one is over. At 1-3, does Rivera last another week?

Only thing I agreed with from that article was the bit about firing Rivera and having Gettleman hire his own coach. Rivera is a terrible HC. So what if the players like him and rallied around him to win some ridiculously easy games at the end of the season last year. That doesn't mean the team is going to win. Not sure he even lasts through the season. Players hate Tom Coughlin but that team wins Superbowls. Rivera is still the same coach that called a timeout to let the other team kick a field goal before half time. I'll never forget that act of pure idiocy.