Can you cheer for the star on the helmet without cheering for the star in the helmet?
The Cowboys’ signing of Greg Hardy was great for me – the team’s logo allowed me to use the clever turn of phrase you just read – but was the signing good for Dallas fans?
It’s complicated.
Their Cowboys added an elite defensive end, a dominant pass rusher who came fresh off a year of inaction to record five tackles, two sacks, five quarterback hits and a forced fumble this past Sunday.
All that without giving up anything in return besides their dignity. Unless you believe bad karma from the Hardy signing was what injured stars Dez Bryant and Tony Romo, the Cowboys have clearly improved as a result of signing the domestic abuser.
That’s great for Cowboy fans. But when Hardy took down Tom Brady just five minutes into Sunday’s game against the Patriots, Cowboy fans faced a moral dilemma.
Of course, most of the 93,054 in attendance likely began making noise before they knew the sack was recorded by the man who assaulted his ex-girlfriend.
They just saw a white jersey take down a blue jersey. They were cheering for their team.
But when Hardy stood up, when the PA announcer identified who had made the play, should the fans have shut up?
I don’t think I would have. Not if he were on my favorite team.
For the record, my favorite team is the Patriots, which I don’t bring up to gloat but rather to explain that I’ve overlooked ethical missteps before.
I won’t delve into my feelings on Deflategate (“free Brady”) or Spygate (“everyone was doing it”) but I recognize my fandom has made me rationalize a culture where winning is paramount, where virtue is second to victories.
I consider myself an ethical person. But would I ever turn on my favorite team because I didn’t like the way it operated? No.
Because people generally choose allegiances early on in childhood, fandom is rarely dictated by their personal beliefs but instead by their upbringing, their family, their environment.
That, combined with the fact that favorite teams are one of the few constants throughout someone’s life, ensures that rooting loyalties become crucial to a fan’s personal identity.
For all but the least invested of fans, turning against a favorite team is unthinkable. More unthinkable, it turns out, than rooting for a team with a perpetrator of domestic violence.
So when your favorite team does something objectionable – like sign Greg Hardy – you rationalize it.
You say it’s all about football. Or you talk about the importance of second chances. Or you say, even as the player in question refuses to express remorse over his past, that perhaps he’s learned from his mistakes.
And then you cheer.
After all, that’s your team. There’s nothing else to do.