IRVING, Texas -- Greg Hardy, one of the NFL's best pass-rushers, reportedly will become a free agent because the Carolina Panthers no longer want anything to do with him.
You can't really blame them. Not after the crimes he was accused of committing.
Domestic violence charges against Hardy were dismissed on Tuesday because his accuser, ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder, did not make herself available to help with the case, prosecutors announced. Hardy's appeal of his 2014 conviction was scheduled to start Monday.
We all know the Dallas Cowboys need a pass-rusher, especially in defensive coordinator Rod Marnelli's scheme, because he has such a disdain for blitzing. They need the front four to provide consistent pressure, while the back seven play zone and force teams to methodically drive the ball to score.
The Cowboys went 12-4 in 2014, won the NFC East title and their second playoff game since 1997 with one of the worst pass rushes in the league.
If Carolina releases Hardy as expected, you can expect the Cowboys to do their due diligence on the former sixth-round pick from Ole Miss. Hardy could solve most of the Cowboys' pass-rush issues by himself.
After all, in his past two full seasons, Hardy has 26 sacks. All he's going to cost is cash and salary-cap space.
But do you want that dude on your team?
Now, some folks will say Josh Brent is on the team and he killed someone.
Brent, who was convicted of intoxication manslaughter and spent nearly five months in jail, returned as soon as he finished serving his NFL suspension. He's expected to have a key role on the team next season.
Brent already had one DUI conviction, so he should've made another choice.
Still, we all know folks who regularly drink and drive -- which doesn't make it right. But Brent didn't intend to kill his best friend when he took the wheel that night.
There, but for the grace of God, a lot of folks we know could find themselves in a similar situation to the one Brent experienced.
And running back Joseph Randle is still on the team, having been arrested for shoplifting in October, and last week he was arrested for marijuana possession, though the charges were dropped a day later.
But his ex-girlfriend has filed a protection order against him, and if you listen to the 911 tapes from the incident, you can hear the fear in her voice.
Allegedly beating a woman just seems worse to me. You can call it hypocritical, and maybe it is.
But when you're raised primarily by your mother, like I was, and most of the role models in your life as a child were strong women, doing the things Hardy is alleged to have done to his ex-girlfriend seems inconceivable to me.
It doesn't help that less than an hour after his case was dismissed, he was on Twitter offering a free pair of cleats to anyone who could name his favorite color, favorite president and favorite NBA player.
Really?
That seemed beyond inappropriate given the serious nature of the case.
No team is ever one player away, regardless of what the Cowboys say about the addition of defensive end Charles Haley prior to the 1992 season, but adding Hardy would solve a lot of this team's issues.
But winning shouldn't be the only priority. How you win matters. Why do you think so many folks hate the New England Patriots? It's because they think the Patriots cheat.
We all know the court of public opinion is completely different from the court of law. For some teams, adding Hardy would never even be an option.
Jerry Jones, though, is the king of second chances.
Jones has a history of adding talented but troubled players who have gone afoul of the law whether we're talking about defensive linemen Alonzo Spellman, Tank Johnson, Leo Carson and Demetrius Underwood or cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones.
None of those guys had anywhere close to the talent Hardy possesses. He's long and lean -- think Detroit's Ziggy Ansah -- and the kind of guy every offensive coordinator must figure out how to handle.
When Jerry made those moves for controversial players in the past, the Cowboys weren't being coached by a dude who's forever talking about adding the "right kind of guys" to the roster.
There's no way, based on what we know about Hardy, you could call him the right kind of guy.
But this is professional football, which means coaches get fired if they don't win enough and players get released if they don't play well enough.
A talent like Hardy will help any team win, and Jerry would probably argue the Cowboys are better equipped than most teams to create an atmosphere for a player like Hardy to succeed in Dallas because of their support staff and vast experience in handling players with previous legal issues.
Jerry and Garrett might also believe their locker room is strong enough to handle a player such as Hardy, which hasn't been the case. There are enough players such as Romo, Jason Witten, Tyron Smith and Dez Bryant to make Hardy conform to the team as opposed to the team conforming to him.
When Terrell Owens joined the Cowboys in 2006, former coach Bill Parcells was the strongest voice in the locker room. Parcells didn't return for a fifth season, and the rest of the locker room couldn't handle T.O.'s personality. Eventually, locker room factions formed, and that's what ultimately led the Cowboys to release him a after the 2008 season.
If it's just about acquiring talent, then Jerry and Jason Garrett should waste no time getting touch with Hardy.
Hopefully, it's important for the Cowboys to win without a guy like Hardy on the team.