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"This Was His Version of the Events:" Adam Schefter Defends His Greg Hardy Interview

Adam Schefter digs a deeper hole.

Adam Schefter joined the Dennis and Callahan show on Boston's WEEI today to address his microphone abdication interview with Greg Hardy that aired in its entirety yesterday on ESPN. Schefter has been widely criticized here and elsewhere for essentially introducing Greg Hardy to a national audience and letting him speak, unchallenged, about a violent incident with his ex-girlfriend that left her bruised and fearful for her life. So, during his appearance, Schefter attempted to explain and defend his work.

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One of the first things Schefter says tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the interview—how it would go down, and why it turned out the way it did. When it was suggested that Hardy's agent Drew Rosenhaus set up the interview as a "thinly disguised PR effort" to showcase Hardy as a changed (or innocent) man—and get Hardy a job, somewhere, next year—Schefter bristled.

Well, again, I didn't think about it like that. I thought about the fact that we've got a real serious issue in our society. This guy's never addressed any of these issues that have come up. He's never done it one on one and, yeah, I'm sure he came in with an agenda and so did I…This was a guy that made a lot of headlines, had been in a lot of controversies, had never sat down and explained his viewpoint one on one. He could have whatever agenda he wants, doesn't matter to me. I'm going in there to get somebody who in my mind has been a controversial figure about a very serious subject to talk about it in a way that he's never ever addressed it before.

There is a whole lot to unpack here—and you'd be right in wondering aloud if Hardy has even now "addressed any of these issues"—but the long and the short of it was that Schefter's agenda was never to press Hardy. Schefter never had any plans to approach this interview with skepticism. He was going to have Hardy sit down and "explain his viewpoint."

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Here's the thing, though: Hardy has had plenty of opportunities to explain his viewpoint. He got to explain his viewpoint in court—it's called a legal defense in that context—and he lost. He was entitled to another crack at selling his viewpoint in court and wound up having it validated when the charges were dismissed after Nicole Holder did not cooperate; it was suggested there was a cash settlement involved. Hardy then had a microphone stuck in his face every week when he was playing for the Dallas Cowboys, which gave him any number of opportunities to address these issues—an order of magnitude more than Nicole Holder has had. He's been given a pass, without repercussion, each of those times.

So, this is all more or less bullshit.

Schefter was then asked about his "changed man" quotes. Schefter told the hosts he meant that he expected to see the "persona of Greg Hardy on the sidelines and in games." Presumably when Schefter sat down and Hardy didn't tackle him, or throw his notepad across the room and do a damn sack dance, he felt Hardy had changed. Schefter said he regretted not being more clear about that minor point, which is the only thing he regrets about the interview, by the way.

When asked if he believed what Greg Hardy was telling him:

Yeah listen, I honestly didn't go in there to form an opinion on whether he did or didn't hit her, ok? We all know something unsavory and unfavorable happened that night and it was chilling to see those photos. I wasn't there, I don't know what happened. I'll leave that up to everybody else to figure out and the courts to determine.

This is such chickenshit equivocation it's incredible. While "we all know" that "unsavory and unfavorable" things happened that night, and the very, very cold photos bear that out, Adam Schefter is simply not in the business of forming opinions on people who did things "WE ALL KNOW." And while Greg Hardy is allowed to spin his specious yarns to Schefter's face about never putting a hand on a woman, and while Schefter can repeat them into any open mic nearby, Schefter can only refer to a brutal physical assault documented by photographic evidence as something "unsavory and unfavorable." Adam, this isn't a waitstaff review on Yelp, this is assault and battery. Why can't you use your words?

"It's a very difficult subject, it's a very tough situation. Again, this was his version—his version—of the events." Can't argue with that.