WHITE SULFUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — I’ve tried. I’ve really tried with Deshaun Watson. I defended the Browns pursuing him because Baker Mayfield wasn’t good enough and they needed to upgrade the most important position. Despite all his legal issues, Watson was the best quarterback available at the time.
But Watson isn’t and has never been a victim in any of this.
More than two dozen women said he harassed or assaulted them during massage appointments. More than two dozen civil lawsuits against him or the Houston Texans were settled in confidential agreements.
Shortly after arriving at the Greenbrier this week for the start of training camp, Watson was asked a standard, mundane camp question about rehab from his shoulder surgery and if anything has changed with his approach. Here was his answer.
“I think, honestly, it’s really just blocking out all the bull—-,” he said. “It was tough coming in two years ago, different environment, different team, different all that. So you come in and your character’s been mentioned this way and then kind of flip on you and the biggest thing, you’re trying to get people to like you or improve. But now it’s like, at the end of the day, it’s two years in and if you don’t like me or you have your own opinions, then, yeah, it is what it is. So, I think blocking out all the noise and focusing on me and focusing on what I need to do to be the best Deshaun Watson I could be for myself, my family and my teammates.”
Blocking out the noise is fine and necessary for successful quarterback play. Playing the victim card because people question his character and pouting because people may not like him is nauseating and unnecessary. He did this to himself.
Myles Garrett and Deshaun Watson speak to the media after Day 2 of Training Camp at the Greenbrier https://t.co/1joxKGOfmP
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) July 26, 2024
I realize last year was incredibly difficult on Watson, first with the season-ending shoulder injury and then the way the city fell hard for Joe Flacco.
Cleveland fans have never really embraced Watson, and certainly not to the level they swooned for Flacco during his incredible month of December. For Watson, that had to be tough and perhaps a bit embarrassing to endure.
But here’s the part he can control: Flacco arrived and immediately thrived in Kevin Stefanski’s play-action offense. He made it look exactly how it’s supposed to look. There were too many interceptions, yes, but Flacco ran the offense better than Watson. He had so much success in the system that he walked away with the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year based on five games.
So what did the Browns do in response? Fired the offensive coordinator and overhauled an offense that was finally thriving because it wasn’t the franchise quarterback who was making it go. It was the retired guy off the pickleball court. Can’t have that. Can’t embarrass the $230 million man like that.
GO DEEPER
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The Browns are all the way in this now. They have to do whatever it takes to appease Watson and cater to him, even if it means scrapping an offense that we finally saw for a month perform optimally when run effectively.
The problem is Watson never really looked comfortable doing it. So Ken Dorsey is here as the new offensive coordinator to bring some of the shotgun/spread concepts that made Cam Newton and Josh Allen great quarterbacks. At least Stefanski held onto play-calling duties. He is now a two-time Coach of the Year. He should be calling plays as long as he wants the job.
The more troubling theme, beyond the scheme and on-field performance, is the way Watson spoke like a man who somehow has been wronged in all of this.
“My character was getting challenged,” Watson said. “I know who I am, and a lot of people never really knew my history. I knew who I really was, so they’re going based off other people’s opinions and whatever other people are saying. But yeah, I’m a person. I like to have people like me, and I feel like a lot of people are like that. So sometimes things are in your brain, you just gotta turn and just gotta forget it. It is what it is.”
Watson has never really shown much remorse or taken enough accountability for his alleged predatory actions.
Only once did Watson show any type of contrition, which was in a pregame interview before his first preseason game as a member of the Browns.
“I want to say that I’m truly sorry to all of the women that I have impacted in this situation,” Watson said before his debut at Jacksonville. “The decisions that I made in my life that put me in this position I would definitely like to have back, but I want to continue to move forward and grow and learn and show that I am a true person of character and I am going to keep pushing forward.”
It was a necessary and prudent first step — but unfortunately, the only time he has ever shown remorse. He walked back much of his apology at his next media availability the following week and has remained defiant and unapologetic ever since.
That lack of remorse is what Judge Sue L. Robinson noted when she initially suspended Watson for six games.
I believe Watson has gotten some really bad advice through all of this. His team, at least to my knowledge, never hired a crisis management team to begin mitigating the PR damage. He never was out front on any charity work involving women’s abuse victims.
Instead, he went to Saudi Arabia over the offseason — a country with a horrific record on human rights and specifically women’s rights — and took to social media to rave about what a good time he had there.
Watson’s involvement in numerous lawsuits certainly was a factor in what he could or couldn’t say publicly. But two years later, he still can’t understand why people may not like him? Or understand why the community has been slow to embrace him? Really?
The uncomfortable truth in all of this is that if Watson can stay healthy and return to the form he showed in Houston — if he can thrive in this new offense — many Browns fans will eventually embrace him. Winning is a deodorant, as Stefanski has often said. Even when it comes to covering up sexual misconduct.
Until then, we get gems like this from Watson: “I don’t give two f—s what other people say, to be honest.”
Then let’s be honest. Most NFL fans don’t care what he has to say, either. Until he says “I’m sorry.”
(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
