Regarding the Browns having signed the superstar quarterback who has been sued by 22 women—but cleared by a grand jury—for alleged sexual assault:
First, this is absolutely not to excuse any grown adult for allowing their sense of well-being to rise or fall with the fortunes of the Cleveland Browns.
Second, of course, countless crimes go unpunished in this nation every day, for many bad and inexcusable reasons, especially when they’re committed by wealthy and powerful people. So yes, it is to some extent unsatisfactory to simply say “innocent until proven guilty” with respect to Deshaun Watson, as true and important as that principle is.
But about the 22 ladies who’ve sued Deshaun Watson for having sexually assaulted them, folks should consider not only that a grand jury refused to indict Watson based on these accusations and whatever evidence there was to support them. This is remarkable in itself because sexual-assault cases where more than one alleged victim is accusing the defendant of the same thing are generally considered to be low-hanging fruit for prosecutors.
But what is even more remarkable about these accusations is their timing, as they came in the wake of a flood of press coverage over Watson wanting to force his way out of Houston—based at least in part on the increasingly prevalent perception that the Texans owners are racists—despite having several years left on what was at the time one of the most lucrative deals ever given to a quarterback.
It is well documented that most of the Texans locker room (along with many other current and former players league-wide) was enraged in 2018 when then-owner (since deceased) Bob McNair — who already had “a questionable history of racially insensitive comments,” as one 2017 report puts it — infamously doubled down on his criticism of black players taking a knee for social justice by saying that he “can’t have the inmates running the prison.” And Watson was also upset in January of 2021 that the Texans didn’t hire one of the two qualified black men who were identified as the two best candidates by a search firm that the Texans hired to help fill their GM candidacy.
The “resulting discord” that this GM search caused within the Texans organization led to a piece in the Washington Post titled, “Deshaun Watson is taking a stand against disingenuous NFL owners,” touting the QB as having sparked “a player awakening that owners should acknowledge and respect rather than trivialize the men who enliven the sport.” In this piece, the Texans organization is described as “dysfunctional,” “particularly unstable,” and characteristic of “the NFL’s preset dehumanization.” Watson, on the other hand, is described as “thinking deeply about systemic inequality” and “want[ing] to be as far away from the Texans as he can get.”
It wasn’t until after these headlines about Watson wanting out of Houston that the first of the sexual assault accusations surfaced, all brought by women represented by the same lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who reportedly lives 300 feet down the street from current Texans owner Cal McNair.
It’s bad enough for the NFL plantation owners when star college QBs like John Elway or Eli Manning refuse to sign with teams that draft them. So imagine how the McNairs must have felt about a young black superstar quarterback, who was already beloved in Houston after having played there for several years, leveraging his star power to force his way out of town after having just signed a pricey contract extension — and how much worse that Watson was doing this based on accusations that the Texans owners are racists whom he could no longer stand playing for.
This was a colossal business and public relations crisis for the McNairs that conveniently happened to evaporate as the sensational accusations against Watson surfaced. Then all of a sudden everyone was supposed to believe that this young man who had always displayed high character and leadership in rising to stardom as an NFL quarterback and who is surely one of the last men on earth who’d need to pay for sex or otherwise force his way into it was some kind of sex-crazed brute who’d assaulted dozens of women. Nevermind also that the sex-crazed black brute is a well-worn racist trope.
I can’t say that Watson is innocent, and it’s doubtful that solid proof will ever come out affirming one way or the other; and this being the Browns I of course I can’t say I expect his tenure in Cleveland to end in anything but a heretofore unfathomable conflagration of disappointment and despair. But the folks who are saying that they’re not going to root for the team anymore or who otherwise want to denounce the organization for having signed a quarterback who has been sued by 22 women—but cleared by a grand jury—for alleged sexual assault, should at least consider the extremely suspect timing and circumstances behind these accusations. Every decent person should be able to agree that allegations of criminal conduct should be assessed and adjudicated deliberately, based on facts and reasonable inferences, not politics, and certainly not based on retaliatory and racially tinged witch-hunts.
