As the Cowboys continue to enable Greg Hardy’s behavior, Todd Archer and Adam Schefter bring news of troubling behavior from one of Hardy’s teammates:
In a best-case scenario, [RB Joseph] Randle only will be fined. But more likely he will be suspended, quite possibly for multiple games, for a February incident in Wichita, Kansas, where Randle was arrested for unlawful possession of marijuana after police received a call for domestic violence with a weapon after an incident with Randle and the mother of his son.
According to the police report, the mother of Randle’s son said Randle broke a car window in an argument and threatened her with a gun with their son nearby. In April the charges were dropped, but while legally clear, Randle faced sanctions from the NFL.
It remains to be seen just exactly what Randle’s punishment will be, but if the NFL is going to have a policy against domestic violence with teeth, it should come down hard on Randle. The reason why can be summed up with the name of one NFL player: Jovan Belcher.
That, of course, was a domestic argument that ended in the worst way possible: as a murder/suicide. The key ingredient in why that was able to happen was due to the presence of a gun in such a volatile situation. Thankfully, in the case of Randle no one was hurt. But had there been one emotional misstep on his part, it could have turned out much worse due to the deadly potential that a gun possesses.
Any domestic argument that involves a gun should be deemed violent, even if no physical harm is done. The Joseph Randle case should be a key determinant to see whether the NFL finally has a satisfactory policy against domestic violence, one that will actively discourage another Jovan Belcher-type situation from happening again.