The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Discussing the Deshaun Watson six-game suspension recommendation with Jenny Vrentas

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Deshaun Watson faces a six-game suspension to begin the 2022 NFL season for violating the league's personal conduct policy. The league has three days to appeal the recommendation made by judge Sue L. Robinson, the disciplinary officer appointed by the league and the players association. Jenny Vrentas from the New York Times joins Robert Mays to discuss her reporting on the story, what the recommendation means in the short and long term, and more on this episode of The Athletic Football Show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today's Monday, August 1st. I'm Robert Mays. We got some news today, obviously, and it was announced on Sunday night, or leaked out on Sunday night. It's hard to pin down which one at this point, that the Deshawn Watson ruling was going to come down around 9 a.m. on Monday morning from Judge Sue Robinson, who is the independent arbiter overseeing the case as part of the NFL's new policy as it relates to personal conduct and disciplinary. matters. Six games was her initial ruling. There's a lot to dig into here from what the next

steps are from the league, from the public response to this and just all the nuts and bolts of kind of how this happened and why. And to help us sort through that, someone who has covered this story from the beginning in a way that really no one else has. And I think we're lucky to have her this morning is Jenny Vrentis from the New York Times. Jenny, thank you so, so much for joining us and helping us provide some context to all this. Yeah, glad to be. here, Robert. All right. So six games. Sue Robinson lands on six games. I guess the first question I have for you is, why do you think this was the final number? What do you think led to this conclusion? Yeah, I think it's really hard without knowing exactly what the presentation was from both

sides. We know that it was a three-day hearing, but it was behind closed doors. And so without knowing exactly the full extent of the NFL investigation, how many people they talked to, we know some parts of what they focused on and that there were five accounts with more contemporaneous evidence that were kind of the center of the NFL's case. But I think the number is based off of exactly what was presented in the hearing, nothing more, nothing less. And so I think there's going to be a lot of speculation on how she arrived at that number. But it's important to remember that it's derived from just what was presented from the scope of the NFL investigation. So looking at the actual language of the personal conduct policy, says the first violation of a policy for sexual assault involving force or someone who is unable to give consent is six games.

We also have some precedent here with other situations that have happened in the past, whether it's Ezekiel Elliott or Ben Rathusberger that ended up landing on six games as well. Do you think the language of that policy and some of the precedent here and this being the first time that she's adjudicated one of these cases potentially led. to a similar sort of punishment that we've seen in the past, even if the allegations on the whole in this case and the scope of it are dissimilar to motives to the other things that we've dealt with in this arena before. Yeah, you know, I think one of the hard parts about discussing this over the last couple months was that this was a new process. So we didn't know exactly how it was going to go. We didn't even know simple things about the timeline when her decision could be expected, how it would be announced, how the sides would be notified. We were kind of seeing

all of that play out in real time, and so were the league and the players union because this is a new process as per the 2020 CDA. In terms of the amount of discipline, I think what's also been hard is that there really is no comparable for this case. We have never seen a case with this breadth of allegations, with the number of people coming forward saying that they were affected. So it was really hard to find something to compare it to. There is that baseline for six games, and I think there's some behaviors established in that. Not all of which are reached, for instance. I mean, you know, there's been a lot of talk about what was or was not established. For instance, okay, there weren't claims of, you know, physical violence or this was a sexual assault by force.

Only a handful of the lawsuits that were filed alleged sexual assault. Most were indecent assault or, you know, some other contact that would be inappropriate. in the eyes of the women. So I think, you know, the specifics of what a six-game suspension sort of lines up with is, but that's thought of in the realm of like, hey, maybe there's one case, right? So here we have, you know, two dozen women saying these things happened. And so the number then becomes, you know, an exacerbating factor. And certainly that was why the NFL argued for what it did.

And maybe an individual account didn't allege that bar that you'd have to clear for a six-game baseline. But because there were so many and because it was such a pattern of behavior according to the women's accounts, that's why they recommended harsher punishment. Did you have any sense for why the number of women they talked to in the cases that they actually looked into as part of this process was so low compared to the broader number that we all knew about? Yeah. So I think they don't have subpoena power, right? this is a voluntary process. Not everyone who came forward wanted to speak to NFL investigators. My understanding is that they spoke,

the NFL spoke to 10 of the 24 women who filed lawsuits. So that is a significant number in itself. But there's also some accounts they didn't hear. There were, you know, I reported on a woman. Actually, the first story that I wrote on this subject was a woman that we called Mary. I wrote the story for Sports Illustrated. And she talked about her experience with, Sean Watson in which she said he behaved inappropriately during a session in a sexually suggestive

way, she opted not to talk to the NFL. So I think that's kind of why I was making the point at the beginning that the ruling is based on the information that was given to Sue Robinson that the NFL collected in their investigation. And because they don't have subpoena power, that is not necessarily exhaustive. And I believe pro football talk report today that in the appeals process if we are to go down that road and we can get into that. The NFL can only go on the evidence that was presented as far as their investigation goes. They can't look at the broader scope of accusations of lawsuits. So the information that we've been dealing with the whole time on the NFL side is the information that would have relevance moving forward with any sort of appeal based

on the way that I understand it. Right. That's right. So there's an evidentiary standard that's established in the initial hearing. And that is the evidence based off of which Sue Robinson made her decision and any appeal would have to be based off of the same set of evidence. Tom Pell, Sarah from the NFL Network reporter this morning, kind of like you alluded to in a past previously, about what this case involved and maybe why this decision was handed out, that the pattern of behavior, according to Sue Robinson, was egregious, but the behavior was nonviolent sexual contact. So again, it kind of gets into these gray areas and weird middle grounds as it relates to this and the way that the policy is explicitly written. All right, I want to move to what comes next.

The NFLPA came out with a statement last night, essentially saying, we have no interest in appealing this. It's gone to two grand juries. It went to an independent arbiter. We're going to accept this ruling, whatever it happens to be. So we know that they'll probably be fine moving forward this without appeal. The question now is how will the league react? And the way that I see it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, is that they're kind of two sides to this as far as the league is concerned. They've made it clear for a while now that they wanted an extremely harsh punishment that was a year or indefinite. They didn't get that. So there's the public relations side of this where they don't think the punishment is harsh enough and based on everything that's happened with the league and violence against women over the last decade or so.

I assume they're pretty sensitive to whatever the public fallout from this is going to be at the same time. I don't think they want to delegitimize the process that they just went through as part of the new CBA with this third party the first time that process has been enacted. So what do you think the league's thinking is right now if you had to kind of guess? And what do you think comes next from the league side of this? Because it sounds like they have about three days to appeal this ruling. That's right. They have three business days to appeal. You know, I think the union statement on Sunday night in advance of learning what Robinson's discipline would.

be was exactly what you're just describing to defend the process, saying that, hey, we collectively bargained this. We got for the first time a neutral, jointly appointed arbiter to issue the first discipline instead of Goodell and that, you know, we believe in this process. At the same time, the CBA also does expressly allow for there to be an appeal to Goodell or his arbiter. So you can stand by the collectively bargain process and still want to appeal to Goodell and his arbiter. For the players' union side and for Watson, appealing to Goodell and the arbiter is not going to be what they want to do, right? I mean, I think that in their minds, the fairest process they were going to get was from an independent party. But from the league's perspective, they have that option.

It was collectively bargained. And the CBA says that whatever decision Goodell or his designee makes is final and binding. So it's possible that they could go that route. And I think what's interesting is the decision is kind of coming, or at least the hearing, you know, public scrutiny on Watson really increased over the last couple months, I would say. And I think that resulted in him settling most of the civil cases. And that scrutiny was going on while this case was being mold. And that's what the NFL also has to factor into is. you know, there's a lot of people out there who are reacting to the six-game suspension. And the NFL clearly, in its mind, they were pushing for a much longer suspension, right?

They argued to the arbiter for an indefinite suspension and a waiting a full, Watson would have to wait a full season to be reinstatement, reinstated, excuse me. So, you know, I think we have to wait to see which way the NFL goes, but they certainly have that right in the CBA to take it to Goodell or his designee. The other part of news that came out, I don't know, one in the morning last night, is that three of the final four cases, civil case against Watson, had been settled. How do you think that plays into this process if it does it all or into the things to league is weighing?

Yeah. You know, all along the league has said that the settlement of the suits does not affect the collectively bargained process. And sure, that sounds like a talking point. but on some level I do think that's right. I mean, each of these parts of the handling of the claims against Watson have kind of been handled in their own lane, right? There was the criminal investigation, and then there was the NFL investigation, and then there were the civil suits. They all relate to one another, but they each have different ways of resolving.

You know, I think for Watson, it's probably no coincidence that these settlements were getting done right as the discipline was being prepared to be. be issued. You know, I think for him, it's sort of wanting to close all of these chapters and move forward. And, you know, I think for the women, this has been something that they've been dealing with publicly for a year and a half and privately for longer than that. And so there is some measure of, you know, do you want to move on with your life? And, you know, I think there can be some peace that you find in accepting a settlement and moving forward and not having to go through a very public trial. Based on the conversations that you've had, how much do you think the public fallout and the

public reaction to this will influence what the league wants to do moving forward? I know that's a difficult question, but I think that it's a hard thing for them to weigh and it's a hard thing to calculate. But it does seem like it's going to be part of how they react to it just because they've been so intentional about getting the word out there about how much discipline they wanted to hand it out as part of this process. Yeah, I think it's impossible to separate the public reaction from what the NFL will do moving forward, because we know that the personal conduct policy often operates as kind of a PR mechanism, right? Yeah. I mean, the whole concept behind it is to show that, you know, off-field conduct is taken seriously and that there are consequences for high-profile people who represent the league. And so I think it would be naive to say that the outside reaction,

wouldn't influence the NFL. I guess the degree is, or I guess the question is how much, right? To what degree does it influence the NFL? And if they do decide to appeal and take that, right, that's enshrined in the CBA to take it to Goodell or his designee, how far would they be willing to stray from Robinson's recommendation? Because I think that the initial response to this this morning, a response that's totally justified when you look at all of the facts, it just doesn't feel like enough. If this stands at six games, he will be fined about $350,000 based on the structure of the contract. He'll make $45 million in cash this year because of the signing bonus he got from what is a

fully guaranteed deal. He will miss a third of a season with almost 30 lawsuits filed against him. He was traded for the biggest hall we've ever seen for a given player. There is no real consequences to this when you consider the scope and how long that we've been talking about it. And I can understand if you're the league looking at this final reaction, looking at this final ruling and everything that's brought us to this moment and concluding that, like you just said, there aren't enough consequences. If this is supposed to be about understanding that players have to be disciplined for things like this, the discipline does not align with everything that we're. we think we've come to know as part of this process. Yeah.

I think it's a great question, Robert, and it's certainly something that I've thought about over the last year and a half, what will the resolution be on any of these fronts? And how will it look compared to the allegations that were made against Watson? But I think, you know, the reason that you do investigative reporting is because you know that we can't always rely on institutions. Yeah. And so my folks. has always been what's the conduct that's alleged. Let me report on that. Let me try to report

as much as I can on the scope of it, how much of it there was, the details of it, present that to the public and let people make their own determinations. You know, institutions have long struggled with how to handle sexual violence. I think we don't often see consequences that we think are in line with the allegations that are made. But at the same time, every person that comes forward with an account of sexual violence, it matters. And it's shining a light on something that probably doesn't get enough attention in our society. So that's where I've always kept my focus is what are the women saying? What corroborating information do we have? What facts can be put out there in the world? And all of that persists independent of what institutions do or don't do.

And I know that that's how you should and are looking at this. For me, I think I could take a little bit more leniency when it comes to putting a little bit of more of an editorial spin on all of this. And I just think that I remember talking with Lindsay about this in the moment when the Browns made the trade. And even that just weird press conference the first time they all got up there when they introduced him to the public. The Browns made a very cynical bet on all of this. And the cynical bet is that in instances where this has happened before, it goes away. You take whatever the punishment is. You take your medicine when it's initially doled out.

And in time, especially when he begins to play again, this will dissipate. And it will cease to matter as much over time. And when they made that bet, I think they thought it was going to be less than half a season. This is the range they thought the suspension was going to land in based on precedent and everything that's happened. And if this is what it is, if this is it, if it is six games and that's what it is moving forward, then everyone who made these cynical bets was justified in making them. And that's an incredibly frustrating conclusion to come to if you were these women and if you're anyone who's been affected by something like this in the past.

And you've had to sit with this for so long. It just is proof that the trade, everything that they did as part of this is worth the bet that they were going to make, and I assume that's an incredibly unsatisfying conclusion to a huge group of people. Yeah, and I think you're right, Robert, that was the bet that the Browns made. And I think the other thing the NFL has to consider is that what the outcome is in this situation will inform future bets that other teams may make. Absolutely. And that there will be a lasting impact from however this is finally resolved.

And I think that has to be or should be part of the thinking on the league side. of this is that if we're going to come to the end of this and there's going to be such dissatisfaction with the conclusion, how can you prevent that dissatisfaction in the future as much as possible? And I think that they do have some sort of responsibility and making sure that happens in the future. All right, like you alluded to, the first story you wrote about this at Sports Illustrated was in March of 2021. You have been working on this for the better part of 18 months. And the work that you've done on it is completely indispensable. As you kind of sit back and think about this entire process, what are you going to take away from

how all of this unfolded? You know, I think a lot about Ashley Solis. She was the first woman to come forward and file a lawsuit against Deshaun Watson. She has been the face and the name of these allegations for the last year and a half. And that has taken a toll. It's taken a toll on her mental health, it's taking a toll on her business. It's not an easy thing that she did. And if she didn't come forward, we may never have known about the accounts of the other more than two dozen women who have come forward. And so I think that's what I'll continue to think about is the women that decided to come forward and shine a light on some of these alleged behaviors. I have spoken to some of these women. I've spoken to Ashley. I've spoken to other women. I've seen some of the

message exchanges, the corroborating information. And I think there's a lot of power in those accounts. And I think regardless of what the NFL discipline ends up being, I think those will persist. And I think those will continue to be part of the public discourse. And I don't think that any decision by any institution makes their accounts less relevant or waters down the importance of women stepping forward. I think that they took a big risk and perhaps a lot of the discussion and attention surrounding this case is settling down. But I do think their accounts will last a lot longer than that. As they should. So over the next few days here, what are you waiting for? What are you keeping tabs on? What do the next 72 hours look like on your side of this and for?

the process at large. Yeah. So I think it'll be interesting to see what the NFL decides to do if they do issue the written appeal. And then, of course, it'll be up to Goodell or his designee. So I think that is going to be a very big decision that the NFL has to make. And then in response, could the players union and Watson's representatives take this to federal court? You know, if there is a further challenge of the NFL or if there is an appeal rather and a new ruling could then that continue or result in a continued challenge, excuse me, from Watson's team. I think that'll be very interesting to see. And I hope that the discussion over the next few days is less about the fantasy impact or when we'll see Watson on the field and more about the facts of the matter of this case. But

I guess that remains to be seen. I'm not ready to start talking about the football side of this quite yet, and I don't think I will be for a little while. So Jenny Varentis, thank you very, very much for the time this morning and also just for all of the work that you've done as it relates to this over the last year and a half or so. You've been such an important part of getting the story told, and I appreciate you adding to that just a little bit with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me.

All right, that's all we got. Thank you to Jenny. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be back on Wednesday as part of our training camp coverage. I am on the road in Santa Clara right now. We'll be going to Denver a little bit later this week. Appreciate you guys checking back in with us. We'll have an old friend on Wednesday show,

a conversation that I'm very much looking forward to. I will be seeing her in person later this week, which is exciting. So please come back and check that out. Really appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.