Greg Hardy's contract with the Dallas Cowboys expired last month. Since no team has signed the controversial free agent pass rusher since, Hardy used some of his free time to do an interview with ESPN's Adam Schefter.
And despite being suspended four games last season and missing all but one in 2014 with the Carolina Panthers while languishing on the commissioner's exempt list in the wake of a domestic violence trial in North Carolina, Hardy claimed to Schefter that he's never touched a woman in anger.
“I’ve never put my hand on ANY women ... in my whole entire life, no sir," Hardy said Monday morning in Oxford, Miss., where he played collegiately for the University of Mississippi. "That’s just not how we’re raised. As you can tell, like I said again, it’s the Bible belt. It’s just something that’s, I wouldn’t even say frowned upon, just something that’s nonexistent in most southern homes.”
When Schefter asked about the bruised and battered pictures of Hardy's former girlfriend, Nicole Holder, that surfaced on Deadspin last November in connection with the alleged assault — Holder said Hardy threw her against a wall, tossed her onto a futon covered with assault rifles and choked her — Hardy was quick to respond.
“I will stop you there and say that I didn’t say that I didn’t do anything wrong," he said. "That situation occurred and that situation was handled but ... saying that I did nothing wrong is a stretch but saying I am innocent is correct. Yes sir.”
Hardy was initially convicted of assaulting a female and communicating threats, but the charges were eventually dropped after Holder didn't appear at the appeal in front of a jury.
A veteran of six NFL seasons, Hardy has 40 career sacks in 75 games and was tagged by the Panthers as their franchise player after the 2013 season, when he posted a career-best 15 sacks.
ESPN2 will air the entire interview with Hardy on NFL Live at 2:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
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