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Why was James Hardy cut?


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Turn back the clock moment. Did he attack a family member? I cant remember why we let him go. I still remember him making a very nice td catch in jacksonville in his rookie year and thought he would be decent. He had the height the team needed at WR.

I think he pulled a gun on his dad but that had nothing to do with why he was cut. He couldn't run patterns or hang onto the football very well.

 

He did, however, set the stage and precedent for the Marrone/Hackett strategy still used to this day. We drafted Hardy because he was tall and was a red zone threat in college, and could jump up and catch fade patterns in the redzone/endzone. In his first game, against the Jaguars, late in the fourth quarter we did just that, he leapt up high, caught the ball, got both feet in bounds and won the game on a great catch in the corner of the endzone.

 

So we promptly never threw it to him like that again the rest of his career.

 

"Why should they call that play again?" claimed Doug and Nate, "It worked. Other teams will be expecting it."

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Hardy didn't have the fluidity and agility of movement as well as the mental capacity to play in the NFL, throw in a chronic hamstring injury and it just wasn't meant to be. The guy was big and had decent speed. But he just couldn't run routes very well and his hands were average at best. After the Bills released him in 2010 the Ravens picked him up for a camp but he got cut. Seems like he has had a lot of issues post NFL life hope he gets the help he needs.

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BP4E, you are definitely setting the record for "most random threads posted in first 50 posts".

 

I look forward to tomorrow's threads "Author that penned odes to Kamil Loud", or "Tolliver, Hobert, or Armstrong - YOUR favorite Billy Joe"

 

Re. Hardy: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/05/05/former-nfl-player-james-hardy-arrested/

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Pretty sure DeSean and Jordy went right before or right after our Hardy pick. I was shocked that Hardy slipped to us at that point in time. Yet another reason why I'm not our GM.

He went to jail for a couple days in college for domestic abuse on his girlfriend, he slipped a bit because of that. Then the thing with his father his rookie season, both outlined here http://thevikingnati...mes-hardy-pulls

Neither of those incidents were the reason we released him, those things didn't scare teams back then. He was released because he wasn't a very good player.

Edited by Steve O
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I think he pulled a gun on his dad but that had nothing to do with why he was cut. He couldn't run patterns or hang onto the football very well.

 

He did, however, set the stage and precedent for the Marrone/Hackett strategy still used to this day. We drafted Hardy because he was tall and was a red zone threat in college, and could jump up and catch fade patterns in the redzone/endzone. In his first game, against the Jaguars, late in the fourth quarter we did just that, he leapt up high, caught the ball, got both feet in bounds and won the game on a great catch in the corner of the endzone.

 

So we promptly never threw it to him like that again the rest of his career.

 

"Why should they call that play again?" claimed Doug and Nate, "It worked. Other teams will be expecting it."

we threw about 10 more jump balls to him throughout that season. he would fight them all off as best he could until they hit the ground, he caught one more in garbage time and then we all realized he just plain couldnt catch. the Jville catch was also laboured if you watch the replay, he almost dropped that one too.
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