ON MY way home on Friday I was checking Twitter for the latest news in sport when I came across the pictures of Nicole Holder.

Holder is the former girlfriend of NFL player Greg Hardy, who left her battered and bruised in 2014 and served a meagre 14 game suspension.

Seeing the pictures only strengthened my opinion that 14 games was not enough for Hardy.

Holder was covered in bruises all over her body and underneath the pictures were her account of what happened.

She describes in detail how he not only threw her onto a futon full of “guns from ... the army or ... I mean like from video games” but went on to strangle her, telling her: “I should kill you.”

This evidence which was made public for the first time was surely enough to have Hardy kicked out the league.

But it wasn’t. Because the league had seen it already. They had used these pictures and her account to suspend Hardy last season.

And they felt that after his suspension he should be welcomed back like nothing had ever happened.

My thoughts immediately turned to Ray Rice. Who, once the video evidence of him knocking out his then fiance was leaked, was released by the Baltimore Ravens within the hour. They did not what to be associated with him and rightly so.

So I waited for the Dallas Cowboys to do the same. It was rumoured that this was the first time they had seen the pictures of Holder and it would have to change their mind about employing Hardy.

If they had seen these photos prior to signing the defensive player, then they are an even worse franchise than what I first imagined.

But they admitted that Friday night was the first time they had seen those photos as the league did not give them access to them last year.

And that for me is probably worse. Had they not done their due diligence and properly investigated Hardy? Former police officers and FBI agents now work for NFL teams to do this, research intensively into the backgrounds of players to see what they are hiding.

And Hardy wasn’t hiding this. It was open knowledge what he had done. If they wanted to see those photos they could have.

But clearly, somewhere down the line, the decision was made to just ignore the photos in hope that they never see daylight.

But they did. And the Cowboy’s response was pathetic.

After their defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, head coach Jason Garrett said: “You know, we as an organisation, we don’t condone domestic violence,” which could have fooled me.

“We take the issue very, very seriously, and we knew that when we signed Greg Hardy there would be some criticism that came with that.

“We laid out expectations for him right from the start and we decided that we were going to give him a second chance.”

But surely the second chance should come once he accepts responsibility for his actions, that’s if he even deserves one.

And Hardy showed his true character when responding to the images.

He said he wasn’t responsible. She attacked him and he protected himself. That she was drunk and fell down.

She fell down. Really? That is the excuse you are going to use? At this point I was screaming in my head for the Cowboys to release him.

This isn’t a player who cares about what he did, despite him saying he “regretted” what happened.

He is blaming Holder for what happened, this is someone who should not be playing professional sports in the United States.

The Cowboys have said that for Hardy to continue with the franchise he has to follow strict guidelines and undergo a particular set of sessions, which everyone assumes are on domestic violence and anger-management.

But this should have been done before they signed him to a one-year deal.

I love the NFL and think it is a tremendous sport but at the roots of it are a group of men who do not care about domestic violence. They can’t.

They fined William Gay for wearing purple boots as he tried to raise awareness for domestic violence. You may remember that Gay’s mother was killed by his stepdad.

This is a sport that allowed Jameis Winston into the league, on the back of his alleged rape of Erica Kinsman while at university. Not to mention that he is now suing her for defamation.

This is also the league that has a player in the Pittsburgh Steelers hall of fame, Greg Lloyd Snr, who have been accused of sticking a gun in his 12-year-old son’s mouth for getting bad grades in school and a year later pointing a gun at his ex-wife.

And this is the organisation which will celebrate Payton Manning (right) breaking the career passing record next weekend, he is three yards short, and the record for most career wins should the Denver Broncos beat the Kansas City Chiefs next weekend.

You may think that there is nothing wrong with making a big deal about Manning’s achievements and neither did I until Sunday night.

A friend of mine pointed to allegations that in university, Manning, while being examined by a female trainer, pulled down his shorts and sat on the trainer’s face.

He then rubbed his genitalia on her face until she managed to escape. Manning’s defence was that he was mooning a teammate but witnesses backed up the trainer’s story.

They also backed up that he reinacted what happened twice and went on to call her a bitch for trying to give him a drugs test.

I had never known this about Manning, who is often hailed as the golden boy of the NFL.

The way he battled back from potential career-ending neck surgery and will go down as one of the top five greatest quarterbacks of all time.

But he has a disgusting past. The trainer settled for $300,000 and was forced to leave her job at the university.

Manning later released an autobiography in which he said she had a “vulgar mouth,” and the trainer was then demoted at her new job.

She sued for defamation and won, which led to a gagging order being placed on Manning from ever speaking about what happened again.

DId that stop him? Well in an interview with ESPN in 2005, Manning brought up what happened back in 1996. He had to resettle with trainer. And rightly so.