ESPN Writer Compares Greg Hardy Supporters To Patriots Fans Who Defended Tom Brady In DeflateGate

By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) -- Sports fans love their teams, and by extension, they typically love the players on their team ... at least, they love those players until they leave their team. Then they move on to hating those players when they're playing for other teams.

This is the way of sports. For better but mostly for worse, allegiances to local sports teams can lead to skewed perspectives and compromised feelings. It is how it works.

Yet in some cases, fans of a team fight against poorly founded accusations in a situation which include numerous instances of misbehavior from NFL employees and the NFL commissioner. And in other cases, fans of a team defend a man who violently beat his girlfriend.

These cases aren't really relatable.

That is, they were unrelatable until Monday morning on ESPN Radio.

Writer Jane McManus has tackled the complex issue of domestic violence in sports, and particularly the case of Greg Hardy. Her columns are thoughtful and somewhat rare in the sports media landscape, but in speaking with Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio on Monday morning, she missed the mark by quite a wide margin. And it's likely to catch some attention in New England.

"You all know better than anyone working in this business that fans will often defend a team no matter what has happened with it or what the player has done," McManus told the hosts. "I think you look at the Patriots fan base with DeflateGate and you will find a group of people that are surrounding that team and really defend that team. And for me, personally, this is kind of what's problematic about having players who commit such acts of violence on the team, because then you have a fan base who's willing to overlook and defend that. And I think that cements a cultural idea, a cultural response that I'm not comfortable with. But I think that's the ultimate problem. You do have fans that are going to defend him and fans that are going to say even now, 'Well what did she do?' And they will victim-blame."

Err. Wait a tick.

As a reminder, the Patriots' footballs in the first half in a game in January were full of slightly less air than basic physics would dictate. Or, perhaps it was the exact amount that physics would dictate. An MIT professor proved this in great detail just a few days ago, and you can see for yourself if you're not afraid of a little science. If there was any deceitful act, it was incredibly minor, and it was resolved at halftime of the game in question. The Patriots outscored their opponent 28-0 in the second half, and they haven't lost a game since.

Yet after that game, the commissioner of the league led a siege on Tom Brady, allowed false reports to linger throughout the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, and turned a potential jaywalking violation into a first-degree murder felony charge. The commissioner took it to a federal court, and he is currently fighting the case in a court of appeals. Even those who believe Brady was absolutely guilty of telling ball boys to let some air out of the footballs would have to agree that the response from the league went far overboard.

So, naturally, Patriots fans fought back, when major media outlets like ESPN showed no intention of clarifying misinformation and false reports, and when the other 31 fan bases pointed at laughed at the Patriots. Again, that is how sports work.

But Greg Hardy violently beat up a woman. He was convicted of doing this by a North Carolina judge. He escaped further punishment when he paid the woman money before a jury trial on appeal. Photographs came out last week showing the extent of the damage Hardy inflicted on the woman.

There is, simply, no defending that, no matter which football team you hope wins some stupid game on a Sunday afternoon.

And any comparison of the two situations unquestionably misses the mark.

McManus' comments hit the Internet quite quickly on Monday morning, and she tried to explain her point.

Fair enough. The larger points is that fans are conditioned to defending their teams when questioned by "outsiders." But taking fans who argue about air pressure in footballs and lumping them in the same statement with fans who might support a man who violently assaulted and threatened a woman is undoubtedly a poor way to try to prove that point.  No words need to be twisted to see that.

Chalk it up to a misstep from someone who's well-versed and thoughtful on the subject. But it still caught plenty of attention in New England as soon as it was said on the worldwide leader, and with good reason.

Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.

In:
• NFL
• Tom Brady
• deflategate