The Ringer NFL Show - Deshaun Watson's 11-Game Suspension

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Nora and Lindsay share their thoughts on the news that Deshaun Watson has now been suspended for 11 games and fined $5 million. They discuss Watson’s punishment, Watson and members of the Browns organization's press conferences, and more. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Lindsay Jones Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. I'm Brian Barrett, former Boston Sports Radio Guy, and now host to the new Ringer show Off the Pike that'll cover all your favorite Boston teams and stories from Fenway to Foxborough to the Garden and beyond. We're reacting to all the biggest games and moments with episodes at least three times a week featuring myself and some of your favorite guests at the ringer and in the city. Plus, if the Celtics or the Patriots make a surprise trade, if the Red Sox's going to run, or if any news breaks, will drop instant reaction. episodes too, so you're always up to date with the latest chatter. Get in on the action and follow off the pike with me, Brian Barrett now on Spotify. Hello and welcome to the ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Princeati. Before we get started with today's episode, I want to mention that we're going to be covering the settlement in the disciplinary case regarding Deshaun Watson. So this episode is going to contain a discussion of sexual assault that some listeners may find disturbing. The news is that on

Thursday, the NFL and the NFL PA reached a settlement in the Watson case and agreed that he will be suspended 11 games in 2020, fined $5 million and agree to attend mandatory counseling. I am here with Lindsay Jones to go through the news and kind of figure out how this settlement was reached and talk about what it all means. Hi, Lindsay. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you?

Fine, fine, fine. So we know what the decision in the settlement is. What do we know? What can you tell us about how this agreement was reached between the NFL and the NFLPA? So it's been just over two weeks now since the NFL and NFLPA arbiter, Judge Sue L. Robinson, made her initial disciplinary ruling. And that was, if we go back a couple weeks, that was six games. There was no fine added to that.

the NFL then went and appealed. And in the NFL's appeal, which went to Roger Goodell or somebody who he would designate, who ultimately was Peter Harvey was the man who was designated to hear this appeal, the NFL was asking for their initial disciplinary recommendation, which was a full season plus. So 17 plus games. So in the two weeks since, this allowed the NFL and the NFLPA to reopen settlement discussions. There were settlement discussions before Judge Robinson initially made her ruling. This was kind of happening throughout the summer in late June and throughout July.

The two sides at that point, though, were so far apart. Deshaun Watson's side was coming in saying zero games and the NFL was starting at 17 plus. So there really wasn't a lot of middle ground and they never really got that close to having any sort of settlement before Judge Robinson issued her discipline. But then once there was the six games, the NFL appealed made it pretty clear that they were going to go and ask for 17 games again. And knowing that Roger Goodell or his designee would ultimately have the decision to really do whatever he wanted in this situation. The NFLPA and Watson's team came back and continued to negotiate. And ultimately they got to that 11 game, that 11 game range. There was a lot of speculation in recent days that it might be in that 10 to 12 range.

the NFL was pretty clear that they wanted to push for a fine. I'd heard that they even wanted something more significant than $5 million, basically because Deshawn Watson was paid all of last season, even though he didn't play. And he's not really getting financially punished that much this season because of the way that the Brown structured his contract. So, you know, they wanted to, you know, make it hurt in the pocketbook a little bit more. So ultimately, they, you know, they negotiated this out, and it feels really awful.

I think, for everybody. I mean, I think a couple weeks ago when it was six games, you could look and say the NFL lost here. I mean, this was not what they wanted. I don't think this is what anybody who is, you know, an advocate for victims of sexual assault would have wanted. But Watson and the Browns were probably pretty okay with six games, all things considered. Now we're at 11 games, and I think it feels bad for literally everybody.

So I think part of the reason that's the case. is because it's come up, you know, it came up a few times in what you were just explaining so well, like the idea of what the NFL wants. And they've said, you know, they originally said that it was at least 17 games. You just said that they've indicated that they wanted a heftier fine than the $5 million that ultimately became part of this. My understanding of the process is such that the NFL held all the cards. So part of why I think it feels so bad is that it's very hard to square, okay, here's this guy who the league's own statements to Judge Robinson and in the appeal and just everything that they've said on record is that they believe that this person is a serial sexual assailant.

and then without his side having any leverage, they went and cut him a deal, which even though it's ending up in a place that is a greater suspension than Sue Robinson initially decided on, it is less than what the NFL claimed that they wanted. So what do you make of that? Did they not want a year in the first place? Were they always much more willing to compromise on that than they indicated? Is there something that I'm not. missing here. Like, that is the piece that is hard for me to make sense of. Is there anything

you can add that makes it make sense? Yeah. I mean, I think it's that these things are always under or up for negotiation. And it's just kind of this like reality of business deals and legalese and stuff that like those of us who maybe don't live and operate kind of in the in that world. Like it feels wrong to me. And but this is how like lawyers and these. And, these very wealthy businessmen and very powerful people operate all the time. It's always about cutting deals and trying to get, you know, to move forward or whatever. Ultimately, settlement means that they're not going to go to court, but I don't think that that was this massive deterrent from the NFL. I don't think the NFL was sitting there like scared but they would lose in federal

court. If anything, they love going to court and just dunking on the NFLPA in the federal court system. I think there was just like, this can be over now. But it's a lot. It's a not over because Deshaun Watson is going to be back in week 13, the way that this, this punishment lined up. He's going to make his debut for the Browns in Houston against the Houston Texans. Like, could they not have just looked at the schedule first and just maybe made that not the game? Because there's a lot of optics here, right? And we've talked about this on every pod that we've done since the Deshaun Watson discipline has been coming. Kevin Clark wrote about it in a column. The optics of him going back to Houston for his first game are

very, very, very bad for everybody involved. And if they really want to just kind of like move on from this, you don't make that the first game. And it's also not over, as I think we're going to discuss here, because of what has been said in the reaction in Cleveland since this decision came down a couple hours ago on Thursday morning. Yeah. So I want to go through what's happened in Cleveland over the last few hours. But just to your point about the optics being a thing, that does matter. I think it's very hard to, you know, we can look at this decision and go. We can look at the settlement and go, okay, this feels wrong.

But it is very hard to figure out what feels right because you start doing mental calculations of, okay, how many, you know, how many victims equals how many games. And it just all feels very arbitrary. But I do think that the league deserves a lot of criticism. for staking it's, you know, planting a flag on a minimum year-long suspension and then in a situation where it held all the cards, not actually accomplishing that. If they are going to say that that's what they wanted, it becomes hard to believe that because they had the power to get whatever they wanted and they got something different.

And I do think that there would have been something tangible and meaningful about a year. Even when like, look, I'm going to find it icky to watch Deshaun Watson play football like five years from now if that's what's happening. But there's something real about an entire season unit because those are the units of measurement that the NFL uses for everything. Right. Like if he is part of the 22 Browns, then there is no Browns season. where his misdeeds don't get mixed up in the just really perverted incentive structure of trying to win games, trying to make the playoffs, trying to make the Super Bowl. Even though it doesn't feel wholly satisfying, we do kind of have to live in the real world a little bit. And in that context, I do think that a year would have been something just more tangible than this.

Yeah. And I would say the other thing about kind of this settlement right now and everything that we've heard now from Roger Goodell and in his statement that he put out is that they decided they were okay reaching the settlement because Deshaun Watson has committed himself. I'm quoting the Roger Goodell statement has committed himself to improving himself and his, you know, maybe shown some sort of remorse and his, you know, all of the stuff, which we know now because Deshaun Watson, and we listen to his. actual words when we actually hear him speak and not read something that is, you know, typed up and put out, you know, as a statement through the team, we know that's not the case. So if you are going to say, okay, he has committed, he's admitted that he harmed all of these people and he understands what he did wrong and he's going to make himself a better human being and never do this again, maybe you can get yourself to feeling better about this sort of settlement. I don't think I could personally get there. But I could see how some people could.

But that is not the case. That is clearly, it was only an hour after this ruling came down that we've seen that that wasn't the case, that Deshaun Watson is standing by his innocence. And none of the stuff that these statements that Goodell, the league office that Jimmy Haslam and company have said that they believe about remorse and rehabilitation and that stuff, none of that stuff seems to be true at all. Yeah. So Watson, I think Kevin Stefansky, Jimmy Haslam, all of these players in this situation have spoken over the course of the last few hours. What did Watson say when he talked to reporters that's after Monday?

Sure. So this is the first time that Deshaun Watson has done any media in months. I mean, the Browns have kept him very, very kind of secluded really since he, he arrived. with the team back in March. So I think the context also is important. So the decision kind of comes out, says it's going to be 11 games with the requirement for therapy and counseling and then the $5 million fine. Deshaun Watson puts out a statement. And in that statement that he wrote, he said, quote, he was apologizing, quote, for any pain the situation has caused and that he was taking, quote, accountability for the decisions that

I have made. So this was a statement that was typed up, distributed by the Cleveland Browns, put out through all of their social media. And then within, I mean, it was like less than 10 minutes. He stepped up to a microphone in front of all of the Browns beatwriters. There were a handful of national reporters who were there as well. And then he said, I've always been able to stand on my innocence and always said I never assaulted or disrespected anyone. But at the same point, I have to continue to push forward with my life and my career. He was asked why he's apologizing and why he's settled if he's. If he's he's if he's so, if he didn't do anything. If he didn't do anything wrong. And he said it was, quote, for everybody that was affected by the situation, there were a lot of people that were triggered. So, yeah. Somebody in some meeting room in Cleveland at some point over the last month decided that triggered was going to be a useful word. And it is just not. Yeah. And so he, he also in the course of this press conference said that all of these, the lawsuits, the allegations, all caught him by surprise.

There has been no admission that he understands why dozens of women accused him of various forms of sexual misconduct. And he really was kind of resolute that he did nothing wrong and didn't show any bit of remorse at all. I mean, he very much said that, you know, the only thing that he seems to be remorseful about is that he's not going to be playing football for 11 weeks. And he's not going to get to be in the locker room with. his teammates for a little while. Nothing about the understanding what sexual assault,

sexual misconduct, the consent, the feelings of these women, the very real accusations that there's no gray area left. I mean, there should be no grounds for like, did he do it or did he not do it? Are these women lying? Like, these are very credible allegations now that have been confirmed by the NFL's investigation and the NFL arbiter. He just doesn't understand why. And in some cases, In terms of just whether there was sexual contact that occurred by Deshaun's side as well. That's not in dispute. Yes, for sure. So, you know, that quote unquote happy endings are not a crime that his lawyer said on Cleveland

radio. I mean, there's just a lot. There's a lot here. We don't need to go into all of that stuff. We've, I think, covered everything pretty thoroughly in other pods as well. But that is the biggest disconnect for me here, is that. You say you can, he goes out, he gives this really, like, weak apology a couple of days ago before the Brown's first preseason game in which he played poorly, I might add. And this was an apology that was to Adi Kinkabala, who is a sideline reporter for the Browns right now. He said that he was, he apologized to the women that were impacted. And to me, that's like the most basic half-ass type of apology that you can ever get. Yeah, it's, he's apologizing to everybody for nothing, which I don't know.

what that adds up to. I don't think it adds up to an apology. Particularly when it comes in a moment where like the other piece of this is that particularly then, right, when he, he, he made that apology, whatever we want to call it, uh, before the preseason game, that's at a moment when his lack of remorse has become an aggravating factor in his discipline. So even in a situation where he has motivation, there's something for him to gain by, you know, standing on camera and saying, I'm sorry. The best that that can get anyone is, I'm sorry to anyone who was affected by this situation.

The wall, you know, still all of his on record comments since then and predating that moment included claims that he didn't do anything. So it's all been in very sort of unsatisfying in that way and dissonant with, as you said, with the NFL's fact findings. And then that gets into how someone like Jimmy Haslam responds to this, right? Because Jimmy Haslam is essentially a part owner in a league that has found his quarterback to be someone guilty of serial sexual assault. That Roger Goodell engaged in predatory behavior.

I mean, the commissioner of the NFL called him a predator. So yes, Jimmy Haslam, this is the face of your franchise. So how did Jimmy Haslam? connect to those dots. Well, let's say it was not a great press conference performance from Jimmy Haslam, who now maybe I understand why he previously only talked to reporters on Zoom or in private off-the-record conversations over the course of the last, you know, eight months. Because if this is how he's going to perform when he's up in front of kind of live cameras

and live mics and not predetermined questions, it wasn't great. It was a pretty embarrassing performance out of Jimmy Haslam, who said that he would not actually speak to anything that was in Judd Robinson's report. So anything that had to do with the investigation, the nature of the sexual assault claims, all of those things, he wasn't going to address any of that. But what he did do was say a lot of things that he was 100% comfortable with Deshaun Watson at his quarterback, as his quarterback, planned on having Deshaun Watson as his quarterback for a very long time, pointed out that he's only 26 years old, said that he was very much deserving of a second chance because, and look, they gave Kareem Hunt a second chance and that's worked out

great. So that was a really high moment of this press conference. But then he would vaguely say these things like that, you know, Deshaun Watson is going to have an opportunity to rehabilitate himself, but wouldn't talk about what he would be rehabilitating from. And this came right after Deshaun Watson stood up at the exact same microphone and said that he had done nothing wrong. So it was just this very weird, you know, he wouldn't really get into their vetting process, their investigation. It just was not, it was not a great, a great performance. And if I'm a Browns fan, I would not be very confident in the leadership there. Was there anything else that came out of those press conferences in Cleveland this afternoon that you found notable?

Yeah. I mean, Dee Haslam, Jimmy's wife, was also. also there. And she was the one who kept kind of, kind of had me to jump in and say, we do care about sexual assault and we do care about women and pointing out that they're donating a million dollars to sexual assault education program, prevention programs. They are paying Deshawn Watson $230 million, I'd like to point out. So they're giving $1 million to, you know, women's charities, but $230 million to Deshawn Watson. Andrew Barry, their general manager, was also up there at the same time as Jimmy Haslam was. And he was asked, you know,

more about the process of, look, you guys traded for him. You gave up a ton of capital. You signed him into this contract. How do you feel now about the process of what you, you know, your investigated process? He called it thorough and said that, yeah, basically just thought it was thorough. And then kind of emphasize he said, we do believe, this is a direct quote, But we do believe Deshaun has strong positive qualities. He's done everything in his power to integrate himself to the team, and he's done everything that we've asked. I'd like to point out that that's all football stuff, right?

I don't think anybody is questioning Deshaun Watson's commitment to the Browns as a quarterback, the way that he's acted in the meeting rooms, the way he's conducted himself in practices, the way his teammates have responded to him. Fine, fine, he's a good teammate. Great. But I think the rest of us have been asking questions about, well, how comfortable are you having this guy as the face of your franchise and somebody that you can bring out and be proud of? And they don't really have like good answer. They can, all they really have is to say, well, he's been a good teammate.

And I think for a lot of us, that's just not really good enough. Yeah. I mean, look, like even, you know, Andrew Barry is someone who's had a really, really good reputation for the last several years. in the NFL. And that's true of a lot of people involved with the Browns right now, right? Like, I think people generally speaking think Kevin Stefansky is a really good coach. But the problem here is that the more the complete contradictions between what the leagues found, what Watson's saying, like the more these people get up in front of reporters and microphones and cameras and just make frankly absolutely no sense and say things.

things like even Andrew Barry saying that their process of vetting him before the trade was thorough. Like it, we know that it wasn't. We know that they didn't do very many interviews. They didn't talk to the women who'd said that he'd assaulted them. It just, I think kind of disqualifies them from being taken seriously, frankly, because like it is very easy to just say like, okay, well, we can just focus on football. But, you know, This is the most important story governing the Cleveland Browns right now. And I actually just don't think that that's really, I mean, I guess it's possible for a lot of people. It's not possible for me.

I think there's, you know, I think it requires some really, really extreme mental gymnastics to say these things, even though they are saying them. And as this process has unfolded and there's been, you know, very little accountability from a lot of the people at the top in Cleveland as they've been sort of shielded from a lot of questions. I think like at least personally, I've had this like, well, I wonder what they really think about it. I wonder what they, like, I wonder how they really see this situation. I wonder if they're, you know, I wonder if they would like a do over. Like now that they've gotten up and just tried to do the full. football as usual thing. I think it means that they have to own it in a way that maybe there was some shred

of plausible deniability before. Like we know that ownership makes decisions like this for football teams. But if people in positions of power on a team are going to get up in public and say things that make no sense when we're talking about someone who the NFL itself is determined to be predatory, like even that in and of itself is just, I think, really disrespectful and frankly, just embarrassing. Yeah. So it is, it is extremely embarrassing.

It's the word that I keep coming back to. And look, people have called the Browns embarrassing for a lot of reasons for a very long time. And this is a completely different spin on it now. I mean, I think the Browns were a bad team, kind of a joke of a franchise for a long time just because of the way that they played on the field and the constant quarterback keros and all that stuff. But they were kind of these like lovable losers.

Now they are the villains. of the NFL. You saw just a taste of it last week in Jacksonville in a, you know, half empty stadium because God knows why he would show up for preseason games when it's 105 degrees in Jacksonville. And they booed the crap out of Deshawn Watson. And he only played a couple series and he was booed relentlessly. It's going to happen in every stadium that he plays in. We'll see what happens in Houston. Houston's going to be weird that first game that he's back. But he is now the big NFL villain. The Browns are kind of the big, big bad, villain here, a team that everybody, or not everybody, but a lot of people, I think, are going to

have a really hard time taking seriously or rooting for or sharing for their success, even if they do play well with Jacoby Brissette. It's just, they put themselves in the situation and they have to own all of it. Yeah. Yeah. And there's even something about the idea that there's sort of like a villain that's like, football is a game. They try to win on the field, the on-field product is, of course, like, the biggest reason that people watch and get entertainment from it. But this is also sort of like a cultural product where, you know, you want to like some of the people that you're rooting for, right?

And, like, there's a piece of it where I almost just want to say, like, it's, they don't even feel, like they don't feel like they're part of the, the 2022 season in the same way. It just seems like this is this, like, sort of weird thing that's happening on, on the side. And maybe by the time it gets to later in the season, unfortunately, some of people's worst instincts will have taken hold and will be curious about their playoff push or whatever it is. But like I just have a hard time even kind of considering them as a football team right now. It just seems like this is a collection of people who contributed to a really, really bad and embarrassing decision and their attempts to sort of gloss over it.

and like sports wash out with a focus on football, ringing a way that's so dissonant with reality that it just makes it worse. But we're going to see him play this year. It's going to happen just after Thanksgiving, week 13. So it's 11 games plus the Browns Buy Week. So it'll be after Thanksgiving. I hope everybody has a lot of time to think about how they're going to react when that happens.

And I'm mostly meaning like hour. colleagues in sports media because I'll just issue a challenge to all our colleagues out there. Let's not writing a redemptive stories, right? The Deshawn Watson redemption arc, let's not do this. This isn't some adversity that he's having to overcome right now. Let's remember why he's been suspended all of these games. Let's remember, you know, why the suspension probably should have been longer. Let's remember the people who were harmed, the true victims here, right, are all of these women that bravely came forward to tell their stories and speak their truth and not the quarterback who is not able to play for 11 weeks. I think that is a great note to end on. Thank you,

Lindsay, for once again going through the latest in this situation. I guess it may be the last time for a while that we have to go through what's what's been going on in the Watson case, but I guess we will see. But appreciate you as always. Thank you, Nora. This has been the ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Pryanti. We will be back on Monday. Thank you, as always, to Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode with additional production supervision from Arjuna Ramgapal.