Mr. Scot

Doesn't matter! Greg Hardy cannot be touched! If they even try, the Supreme Court will intervene! At least that's what's expected here in Charlotte. I'm not sure that some here realize that outside of Panther fandom, the rest of the country doesn't necessarily have the same kind of reverence and deference for Greg Hardy as rabid Panther fans do. I also wonder how it's going to play here if Hardy doesn't swear loyalty to the Panthers and agree to play the next five years for nothing but the love of the game and this team.

The same as Ray Rice initial suspension? That'd be a PR nightmare for the NFL.

I could see an outside chance that he won't be suspended, but the more thought I put onto it the more likely it seems. And yeah, I have no trouble looking at it objectively because I long ago accepted the likelihood that Hardy was never laying another snap in a Panther uniform. Sad that it turned out as it did, but the team has to do what's best for them. Offering contracts to guys that are suspension risks is all too often just too much of a risk.

They're emotionally invested in Hardy, which will likely make it rough when he leaves.

And again, it doesn't matter to the NFL.

Pre-Ray Rice... Post-Ray Rice... Bigger difference. The NFL suspended Adrian Peterson. What makes you think they'd blink at suspending Greg Hardy?

Roethlisberger is a waaaay bigger star than Hardy. If they didn't spare Roethlisberger - and remember that was before the league got embarrassed by the Ray Rice story - what makes you think they'll spare a significantly lesser star now when they have image problems to worry about?

All the things you're saying couldn't happen with Hardy already happened with Roethlisberger, and there were no consequences for the league.

Again, you're talking about a standard of evidence when I'm telling you the NFL doesn't have to meet one. This will likely have as much to do with PR as it will what actually happened.

As mentioned in one of the articles, the NFL doesn't have to meet thkind of standard a prosecutor does. "It probably happened" is enough for the NFL.

Roethlisberger also pre-dated the Ray Rice video and the NFL's image problems. Fair or not, the league views Hardy as a reminder of that story.

Neither did Roethlisberger. The league doesn't care if they admit it or not.

I know the feeling

Here's the big monkey wrench in the whole notion of re-signing Hardy. There is the very real possibility that Hardy gets suspended by the NFL for six games or so. Last year, the Panthers paid Hardy for a full season but only got to use him for one game. (who's at fault for that is irrelevant to this point; it happened) To sign him again, Dave Gettleman would have to be able to accept once again devoting a contract and a roster spot to him for less than a full season of work. Do we believe he's willing to do that?

If he were to have any chance of returning, it would probably be owed to Ron Rivera.

Paying him what the Cardinals did would have been a worse choice.

That thought crossed my mind.

Someone wanna ask Bruce DeHaven how he'd feel? (I think I can predict the answer)

Yeah, a pretty good number of us have outkicked our coverage.

Sub-forum sounds like the best idea to me.

I don't know anything about his religion (not really relevant to the discussion). I do know that after his stated use of the "act like an idiot so that your opponent winds up arguing with himself" strategem, I was forced to yield

I don't think the Panthers salary cap will be affected at all by Greg Hardy.

Aaaaand weirder. Oh

Yeah...Except you just said you hadn't. I think we're done here. Uuuuuh huh. Officially weird now