The Ringer NFL Show - Deshaun Watson Suspension Reaction

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Nora, Lindsay, and Kevin share their thoughts on the six-game suspension handed down to Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson and discuss the possibility of the NFL filing an appeal in the coming days. Hosts: Nora Princiotti, Lindsay Jones, Kevin Clark Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Additional Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Princiotti. This morning, the NFL and NFLPA's arbitrator. in the Deshawn Watson case, former federal judge Sue Robinson, issued a decision which she recommended a six-game suspension with no additional fine for Watson, who multiple women say sexually harassed or assaulted them during massage therapy appointments. Robinson's decision is not final, and the NFL now has three days to appeal her ruling. The NFL PA and Watson said last night before the decision was released that they would not appeal

and urge the NFL to do the same, but Commissioner Roger Goodell has the authority to alter Watson's punishment in any way that he sees fit. This is an ongoing story, and until we know a lot more about whether or not the NFL will appeal Robinson's decision, we don't know very much about what Watson's fate will ultimately be. But this is an important pivot point in the process, and in addition to being a story about a quarterback who is accused of horrible acts, this is also been a story that has revealed a lot about how powerful institutions protect their own, who they see as valuable, and how and when they choose to dole out accountability. So we're going to try to take a close look today at where we are in the disciplinary process, how it works, and try to give you all as clear

an understanding of what got us here and what happens next. And for that, I am joined by my wonderful colleagues, Lindsay Jones. Hello, Lindsay. Good morning, Nora. How are you? Oh, I'm doing just fine. And Kevin Clark. Hello, Kevin. Hey, buddy. What's going on? Hello, hello. So, Lindsay, I will start with you. What do we know about how Sue Robinson arrived at the decision that was released this morning? Well, I think the really, one of the really important things to remember kind of when we're considering this disciplinary decision is that this is the first disciplinary decision under the new collective bargaining agreement that was agreed to in 2020. So, you know, really for the previous eight years or so, or even longer than that,

whenever discipline was handed down, it came directly from Roger Goodell. That was not the case here. This was much more like a trial where the NFL was acting like the prosecution. They were conducting their own investigation. The NFLPA and Deshaun Watson's side was the defense. Both sides presented their case, excuse me, to Sue L. Robinson. And then she issued this decision. So that's really what this process was. The NFL went through their investigation process. They decided what evidence they wanted to present in front of Judge Robinson. The NFL Prié presented its case. What we understand from that, from that is that a lot of the crux of their argument was that other people, namely owners, were not punished heavily for similar acts, you know, namely Robert Kraft.

And ultimately, Sue L. Robinson came down with a decision that, to me, really seems like a pretty strict interpretation of the personal conduct policy, which has a six-game baseline suspension for players who had been accused of, you know, crimes that were sexual or incidents that were sexual in nature. It's even a little, I'm a little unsure whether we should even use the words crimes here. It's a little kind of a murky situation. But the personal conduct policy, as it's written, does give the league pretty broad power to punish players for violations of a lot of different things. But so it's different than any of the processes that we've seen previously. This is not the same as what happened with Ray Rice. It's not the same as what

happened with Ezekiel Elliott or, you know, many, many cases that can't. came before it. This is really the first of its kind. So to me, there's a lot of layers here where we have to consider what this actually means for Deshaun Watson and what he had been accused of, but then also the precedent that this is really setting for the league and NFLPA moving forward. We still haven't seen the actual text of the decision. I believe there was a 15-page decision that exists that Sue Robinson made, but we have not seen that. But based on what we know so far, Kevin, what was your reaction to what you think played out here? Yeah, so a couple of nuggets that have already kind of filtered out of that decision.

The first is that she said that there was a pattern of behavior that was egregious from Watson and that it was nonviolent sexual conduct. She said that every Watson massage from now on should be via a club employee. And she also said there wasn't as via Jeremy Fowler enough evidence for a indefinite suspension based on what they saw. I don't think that this part is much of a surprise. Lindsay, as you said, this is pretty standard for what we've seen in the past for this. I mean, Rick Stroud was reporting that James Winston would have been six games a couple of years ago if it wasn't negotiated down to three. In the past, Ben Rathesberger got six games.

And so if you're going on the personal conduct policy, which is what Sue Robinson was brought in to do, then this part of it is not a surprise. What happens next is one of the most fascinating parts of labor relations. that I've seen since I started to cover the league. The battle between the union and the league over player discipline has pretty much taken place in some way every day since Roger Goodell was granted those powers and took those powers before I started covering the league, frankly. I remember talking to Jeffrey Kessler, who was the union's lawyer, and he said that when they would approach Goodell about disciplinary power and saying, why don't we go to a neutral arbitrator,

it was a non-starter. It was not even, you know, they would say, sure, we'll horse trade and then they would give something that would be absolutely crazy. Like, we'll play 20 games and you'll get a neutral arbitrator, something like that, literally something like that. And so I think what happens now is, you know, Lindsay, you and I were talking about this last night, it's optics. It's all, first of all, it's all optics. Even Sue Robinson being in charge here as optics because Roger Goodell can always appeal to himself and make a decision. He could appeal to, he could designate someone. He could designate Troy Vincent, someone else in the league office.

and put that punishment in that way, if they wanted to do it. But it is all optics. And for me, and the reason that earlier, after the second Jenny Varentis report in the New York Times about having 66 different masseuses and all of that stuff, the bombshell report, the reason I thought the NFL was going to increase the suspension

to what they asked for for Sue Robinson was because I don't think, Lindsay, Nora, like, I don't think the NFL cares what we say. I don't think they care what the NFL network says or ESPN say. They care what New York Times say, the Walls Journal's today show, frankly, that level. And this story gets to that level. And I think that, you know, I think the most formative thing in Roger Goodell's career was the Ray Rice incident

where he had to resuspend somebody and it became a quagmire to the point that he almost lost his job. And their fear right now is that there's going to be more that comes out in the meantime between now in the time Deshaun Watson could play football again. That's what they wanted the indefinite suspension for, to buy time to make sure that there wasn't anything, another shoe to drop, I guess you could say, is the way to do it. And so I don't know where this goes.

I mean, one thing that I've seen the reports all over that, well, the NFL would want to stay on good terms with the union. They don't want to, you know, on the first instance, go against the union, go against what they agreed upon. I've never seen any evidence of that. Like, the NFL is happy to kick the teeth into the union whenever they want. They've been doing, you know,

they've been trying to do 15 years. I don't think that this is kumbaya all of a sudden. So I literally do not know what happens the next three days because there are so many different layers, nor as you said up top, this is about power and how both sides wield it. So we don't know what will happen next, but we do know a little bit about how those processes will play out.

Lindsay, can you just walk us through what the appeals process would look like if the league, you know, chooses to pull that lever? Sure. So, I mean, as you kind of mentioned, the league has three days after the initial decision comes down to decide if they're going to appeal. And the way that the CBA lays all of this out is that that appeal would be heard by Roger Goodell or his designee. Kevin suggested Troy Vincent, who's, you know, the senior vice president at the NFL. You know, somebody like that could handle it. He could appoint somebody. I mean, there have been other people in the league office sphere who have handled appeals in the past. You know, my sense is that because this was a pretty strict interpretation of the personal conduct policy, that Roger Goodell might not feel like he has to appeal this. Is it worth it to go through all of that to get potentially two more games? You know, maybe. Maybe they're inclined to do that, especially after, you know, the PA kind of put out a statement on Sunday night, kind of challenging, challenging Roger Goodell in that in that respect. But so that

That's basically what would come next. You know, I think all of us are kind of hoping that Roger Goodell and, you know, his team there will make a decision on that sooner rather than later, you know, that they're not going to take the full three days to decide if they're going to appeal because I think at this point, everybody kind of just wants to know exactly what the next step is going to be. So the league and Roger Goodell had originally recommended because through the new disciplinary process, they offer super, super. Robinson a recommendation and then she gets to look at the evidence that's presented and make a decision and then the league, the PA can go through the appeals process after that. The original recommendation from the league and from Goodell was an indefinite suspension of at least a year. How, how, Lindsay, do you get from that point to now potentially, as you just said,

Goodell may be looking at this and going, her ruling was based on that. on a very strict interpretation of the personal conduct policy, would it be worth tacking on a couple games to that to go through that process and deal with the union and deal with the fallout from that? Though, again, to be very clear, we do not know that that is what his mindset would be, what would happen.

But how do you get from point A to point B there? Yeah, I mean, I've been fairly cynical about all of this all along, basically since the first lawsuits have been filed. Now, why would you do something like? like that, Lindsay? So I think, you know, when those reports were coming out this summer, I believe it was mostly around in June when it was, you know, these reports, I believe it was first in the Wall Street Journal and then some additional outlets that the league was seeking an indefinite suspension. I don't think that was because they believed that Deshaun Watson's

behavior was so bad. I think it's kind of like Kevin alluded to that a lot of this was kind of messaging, that they wanted to at least have it out there in some sense that they were pushing for, you know, some really strict discipline. And they were going to, you know, knowing that it probably wasn't going to happen, that they would have that kind of PR battle. Knowing that there was going to be backlash to whatever the decision was, if it was six games, eight games, two games, they would be able to have that. Well, like, we were trying to make this a more severe punishment. because I don't think it's about what Dishon Watson did or didn't do or his egregious pattern of behavior to use Sue L. Robinson's language there. I think it's about not wanting the uncomfortable conversations that are going to happen in October and November and December when Dishon Watson is playing in primetime games and potentially has the Browns in position to make a playoff push. I think it was wanting to just keep pushing this off further into next off season.

And I will say the one other thing that we hadn't, you know, when we're talking about what kind of happens next, the one other bit of news that has come out is that three of the remaining active cases have now been settled, according to ESPN from Tony Busby, who's the lawyer there. So, you know, as of recording time now on Monday morning, one active case left. So that idea that more could be coming out, at least from the cases that were currently active, that is going away. But I would say, you know, there's a lot of people who have been doing really good reporting on this, the New York Times, Jenny Brentis, that we'll see if more ultimately comes forward.

And one case is not zero. Yes. I want to push back, Lindsay, and one thing you said, that the NFL was doing it purely for messaging. The MLB did that with Trevor Bauer by just over-susbanding him and saying, we'll figure this out in the courts, right? And Roger Goodell and the NFL has never gone broke over suspending people and letting the court process play out. That's what the flakegate was, frankly, and they won. It took a while, but they won. And I think that exerting their power over players has been a constant theme that they like to do. I think that when you talked about the leaks early on, when they say they wanted

indebted suspension, I don't think it's coincidence that the Wall Street Journal is the first place they went. I don't think that the fact that the place where I guarantee you, I used to work there, that's 32 owners reading that every single day. And, you know, I think that there's, when I started covering the league, somebody said to me one time, but the NFL league office, they're never really mad at you unless they look at it and they say, does this threaten our $25 billion a year in revenue? And if the answer is no, they get over pretty quickly, right? But a story like this, that as I said, like has a has a long tail and could be the dominant story the week that he comes back if there's more reporting.

That's the kind of thing that that gets the league office extremely worried. And that's why I don't, again, I'm not, I'm out of the predictions business with this. But that that's why I wouldn't be surprised if they increased it to some degree. Just a couple of different games. I mean, for me, you know, there's a really cheap Twitter thing that goes around whenever any of this happens, which is, and it used to be, oh, well, so-and-so got four games for weed and two games for domestic violence. And today it's Calvin Ridley got a full season. And part of that, listen, the reason it's cheap is because there's just different rules of different offenses and

this is all collectively bargained and some of it goes in front of a judge and some of it doesn't. It's just CBA stuff, right? But on a story like this, perception is reality. And I think the league does not like the idea that everybody's talking about their inconsistency. and punishments because everybody's talking about this story. This isn't going back a couple of years. This isn't, you know, oh, so-and-so got a DUI. This is like front page of the New York Times type stuff. And that's when they spring to action.

How do you think the Players Association has looked at that, Kevin? Because this is sort of, to them, you know, there's another wrinkle to this where this is sort of their precedent-setting opportunity in the new system. Now, I would imagine they wish they had a different plaintiff for that precedent-setting opportunity, but this is the one they've got. How do you think they are seeing that? How are they seeing that? I don't know if this is precedent-setting.

I think they'd like it to be precedent-setting. But as long as the NFL has that escape hatch, I don't think that there's something they can do. I mean, the statement to me, I think people were reading too much into that statement. I think people were saying, oh, the NFLPA knows what suspension is. First of all, if anybody knew what the suspension was, it would have leaked last night. Okay. Like in the NFL, the only way to keep a secret between two people is if one of them is dead. Okay. Like, that's, that, that's it. Like, everything leaks in the NFL. If there, if people, if, if six people knew last night, it would have leaked. Okay. So they didn't know that. The reason that they ended up releasing that statement was because there's, their, their appeals process is more or less powers. And the NFL's is as powerful as you could possibly get. And so it really, really, really benefits the NFLPA. If both sides going in the decision say, actually, we're going to relinquish. our rights to appeal, right? Because the NFLPA doesn't have the ability to do so. And so,

I mean, it's like, it's like a 16 seat if they get to overtime with the one seed saying, you know, in the court's just saying like, actually, let's call this a tie, right? The less powerful entity would always want that every single time. And so I think that's why they released that statement. I don't think it's necessarily going to work. How does the union view this? I mean, they're doing their job. Dominic Foxworth, our buddy, was just on get up. And I was, you know, He was basically just saying that this is, everything is about the rights of players. I mean,

I'm not saying, this is completely different, but like, you know, I think you look at a situation, you know, the NFL PA filed a grievance on behalf of Aaron Hernandez in 2013, 2014.

I remember covering that. They, they, they view it as if he's an NFL player, he deserves our treatment, our, our, our,

our, our, help. And if you're, if you're union, that's what you're doing. So this is certainly not that. That this is completely separate.

But what I will say, is that they, they view this, I think, is something they would like to be precedent setting. But I think as long as Goodell has that, that Trump card, you're going to see a lot of a lot of different outcomes. So they do have one lever if Goodell and the NFL come in, appeal the decision, add substantially to the punishment in a way that they're not, not happy with.

Lindsay, what is the possibility? that we all end up in federal court here at some point as this plays out. Yeah, I mean, I think that the chances of that happening now are greatly reduced in that this was initially a six-game suspension. And the fact that this has now started off as more of a trial system, that it wasn't Roger Goodell being the judge and the jury and the appeals court here, as it used to be. I think that probably reduces the chances of that happening slightly, at least. But let's say they come in. They kind of drop the nuclear option and say, nope, this is an indefinite suspension upon appeal, 17 games plus, you know, potentially then

Watson could and his team could go to court to file an injunction, try to get a motion to vacate. And that's the route that a lot of players have gone in the past, Ezekiel Elliott, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Tom Brady and his, you know, Deflate Gate case, all of those. The NFL, though, has a very long history of winning in those cases. So I think it would be kind of a last-ditch resort for Watson's camp. I don't anticipate it going that direction, mostly because I don't necessarily see the NFL swooping in and, you know, going all the way to an indefinite 17-game suspension. But it is something that is still potentially on the table.

I don't think they're going to go from six to indefinite. I don't think that. I think they could have gone from 10 to 12 to indefinite. I think that would, I mean, listen, there's so much anger at the Browns in the league over a handful of things going down to even the contract. I mean, this is, I think everybody, I think the Browns would have meant to you. This whole thing has been pretty shameless as far as the trade and the negotiation and guaranteeing all that money, et cetera, et cetera.

So there was a little bit of like, hey, let's let's throw sand in these guys' faces kind of thing. But I think that it would be a bridge too far to go from basically end up tripling the punishment. Kevin, you mentioned the Browns, and I guess we haven't really talked much about them yet. You know, I think a six-game suspension would be viewed as fairly light, and I don't want to get into the territory of, oh, this is good for the Browns and gamifying a situation like this in this way. But what do you think the sort of thought process is in that building right now in relation? to just this system and how this is all going and how they're choosing to handle what is an uncomfortable situation, obviously, and also something that just they don't have complete clarity on what it's going to look like and sort of what the timeline of that uncomfortability

is going to be. I think that they know more. They know that Deshaun Watson's probably going to play football in 2022, which is, for them, knowledge that they certainly didn't have yesterday. I'll say that I haven't talked to anybody in Cleveland this morning. I'm actually in Cincinnati down the road, but we started recording 30 minutes after the decision came down. Then Rossini was on Get Up this morning saying that the Brown seemed okay with this.

I had heard the thing is, and we were kind of joking about this last night, but I've heard so many different rumors because it's basically been two years of this to the point that there's just been time for every single rumor to develop about how a team feels or what's going to happen next. So I had heard a couple weeks ago that they, just in case the worst happened with the suspension from their perspective, that they were feeling out some of the more top tier veterans who would be available on the market, just, hey, what if it's 17 games? They have a good roster, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe they want a short-term guy. This doesn't set them up for a Jimmy Garaplo.

It doesn't set them up for going out and getting another guy other than Jacoby Brissette. They probably feel football-wise that they're in position and the contract will toll and all that stuff. I don't think, listen, I think once you see, certainly once you saw the second NYT report, this is the best case football scenario. I don't think, you know, I was on with a Browns fan a couple months ago in media and they were saying, hey, couldn't they get out of the contract? They were never trying to get out of the contract. That was cope, I think, from some fans who were expecting a different type of NFL team. I mean, that was it, they were not. This is a cynical league.

And this is not just, again, this is not just about the Browns. point that Stephen Ruiz made, you know, five minutes after the trade when we all went live, where he said that this is just as embarrassing for the teams that tried to do this and failed, because there are 10 teams that would have honestly would love to be in the Brown situation right now. And that's what, that's what kind of gives you a sinking feeling in her stomach a little bit. I guess we're going to have to wait and see on a lot of the developments that are to come here and see how the appeals process goes. But before we go here, Lindsay, anything that you are looking at just for

information and a better understanding in the hours, days that are coming up here just to frame how we go forward in looking at this and dealing with it. Yeah, I mean, I think today we're, obviously this morning, we're so focused on like the decision and what did Judge Robinson say, what is the text of her ruling, what does it mean about precedent? And I kind of want to make sure that we remember exactly why everything that happened to get to this point in the first place and why Deshaun Watson was kind of at the center of, you know, this major case and all of the lawsuits that were initially filed and, you know, what all of these women, dozens of women who came forward to, you know, say what they said or what they, what happened to them.

And that's, I think, you know, kind of really just hard for me at this point. it's been hard probably to reconcile, like, all of the different narratives that are out there. And what did he do? And what did he not do? And the, you know, all of the guaranteed money and, you know, watching him at training camp over the last week. And, you know, there are all these videos from two days ago of, you know, playing rock paper scissors with kids and signing autographs. And, you know, it just all still feels really, really gross. And there's no winners here other than, you know, probably Deshaun Watson, who's only going to give up, as it stands right now, like $350,000 or something. I mean, it's pretty minuscule what his ultimate punishment is going to be.

So, you know, while I'm definitely watching for what's going to happen with the appeals process here over the next 48 hours or so, I'm really watching to see now what's going to, what's Deshaun Watson's reaction going to be? What's the reaction from other people around the league going to be? Because to this point, we have not seen Deshaun Watson issue. do any sort of remorse contrition. There's never been any, even anything close to an apology. If anything, there's been defiance that he was. So, you know, I don't think this. Or an explanation. Or an explanation of why a person would be using upwards of 60 massage therapists over the course of a little bit more than a year. Why there would be upwards of 20 women. Exactly. I mean, really what we've heard from him, and it's been in very limited.

You know, he's been very much protected, you know, from questioning, public questioning over the last six months or so. You know, really what he said is that he's never disrespected any woman ever, and he doesn't know why these women would be saying these sorts of things. So I want to, you know, I guess I just want to see if he actually understands why all of these women accused him of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment or sexual assault in some cases. And I just haven't seen any of that yet. And I'm very skeptical that all of a sudden, you know, a six-game suspension with no additional fine will actually change that from him. I think that's an important point to end on, Lindsay, and something we'll be watching for as well as more developments in this story as the process plays out, which of course will continue to cover here. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Nora Prenciotti.

Thank you so much, Kevin and Lindsay, for breaking all of this down. with me. We will be back tomorrow on this feed. Thank you to Mike Wargon for production on this episode with additional production supervision by Connor Nevins.