We’d be remiss if we didn’t document the striking developments that have unfolded since Deshaun Watson suffered a season-ending injury to his Achilles tendon in the second quarter of the Browns’ game against the Bengals last Sunday in Cleveland.
In case you missed it, a substantial portion of the home crowd audibly rejoiced in the injury, causing a number of Browns players and other luminaries in the sports world to speak out against the cruel reaction of these fans.
Most prominently in the Browns locker room, reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett said in his post-game interview that “we should be ashamed of ourselves as Browns and as fans to boo anyone and their downfall.” Garrett also noted, among other things, that “none of us are expected to be perfect,” and called Watson “a model citizen through college and most of the pros.”
Backup quarterback Jameis Winston also offered some passionate remarks on behalf of his injured teammate:
“The way I was raised, I was taught to love. No matter the circumstancess. Especially for people who do right by you. I am very upset to the reaction to a man that has had the world against him for the past four years. And he put his body and life on the line for this city every single day.
“Regardless of your perception. Regardless of what you thought should have happened with him, he committed every single day that I’ve been here to be the best that he can be for this team.
“The way I was raised, I would never pull a man when he’s down. But I will be the person to lift him up.”
Defensive tackle Shelby Harris likewise called it “one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen,” and added:
“No matter what the man’s past is, if he was out there scoring touchdowns for you and we were having a better season here, there would have been none of that. Now we’re getting to the ugly nature of what the NFL and the fans are. Think about how it makes the other players on the team feel. When one of their brothers is giving their all, and he gets hurt giving his all, and you’re hearing cheering from the fans. It’s bigger than football. The fans have to realize you lost a lot of the players that day.”
Many other Browns players, including perennial Pro Bowl offensive lineman Joel Bitonio, echoed these remarks. As did luminaries from outside the Browns locker room, including LeBron James and Deion Sanders.
Unsurprisingly, these developments have left the NFL and Cleveland sports narrative-managers desperate to misrepresent the historic rift they’ve created between Browns players and the fan base with their unprecedented character assassination campaign against Deshaun. Thus, these paid hacks have congealed around the narrative that the Browns players, including franchise cornerstones Garrett and Bitonio, and even legendary figures like LeBron and Coach Prime, are the real bad guys for speaking out against the fans who cheered and jeered the Browns quarterback’s season-ending injury on Sunday.
These hacks are desperately trying to launder the conduct of the fans, as well as their own influence on the fans’ bad feelings toward Deshaun, including by pretending that no one was actually cheering, as if the players were just making this up in deciding to make their unprecedented show of solidarity with Deshaun after the game.
They’re also desperate to cabin the conversation such that “it’s OK to boo Deshaun, but not cheer his injury” OR “screw Deshaun, it’s OK to boo him AND rejoice in his misfortunes” are the only two acceptable aspects of this story worth discussing.
Note in particular how they’re especially upset at the players for suggesting the possibility that Deshaun has been treated more unfairly by the fans and media than he deserves, and for praising the QB for his hard work and, in Garrett’s words, for being a “a model citizen.” Here’s ESPN’s Mina Kimes, for example, lamenting Jameis Winston’s undoubtedly true pronouncement that “the world is against” Deshaun.
And here’s Kimes again, later in the week, hailing FS1’s Nick Wright’s denouncement of Watson’s supporters as displaying “a total lack of regard for women as a true equal class of humanity,” in reference to the sexual-assault allegations infamously levied against the quarterback.
And here’s “FS1’s Danny Parkins: “We gotta not make Deshaun Watson into a victim here and a martyr like those guys were doing when there are actual victims in this story.”
What’s most interesting about this isn’t that these ostensibly “professional” talking heads continue to pronounce Watson guilty of crimes for which he was never even indicted, let alone convicted. They’ve been doing that for years.
What’s more interesting is the way the NFL’s mouthpieces are admitting here, and what the players’ display of solidarity toward Deshaun leaves no doubt about: that the players DO see Deshaun as both a victim and a martyr. And the NFL and its corporate sponsors are desperate to conceal and deflect not only from this fact, but also that Deshaun’s teammates and colleagues are in the best position to judge his character. These athletes not only see what a good person Deshaun is in the locker room and in the community, as they repeatedly attest, and as no one ever questioned before the dubious accusations arose after the quarterback announced his intentions to leave the employ of the Houston Texans. These athletes also see how the quarterback is being held to an absurdly different standard than others who have been faced with worse accusations, and who, much unlike Deshaun, were actually charged and convicted with crimes. These athletes, like most ordinary people who aren’t poisoned by the malicious narratives or inherently racist and elitist PMC “morality,” therefore draw reasonable conclusions from the fact that no criminal charges were filed on behalf of any of Deshaun’s accusers, all of whom were represented by the same attorney connected to the Houston Texans owners, and none of whom had any contemporaneous evidence of their alleged assaults—including that the man should be permitted to get on with his life and career like anyone else would, especially given his otherwise impeccable track record, and especially after having already served an 11-game suspension and seen his career suffer as much as it has from these unindicted and unproven accusations.
Of course, these athletes—who are mostly black men—are acutely aware of the reasonable inference that Deshaun is only facing this unprecedented level of corporate-media-driven scrutiny and hatred because he’s the only black quarterback in history who had the star power to embarrass the Texans owners the way he did in forcing his way out of Houston.
And of course Deshaun’s teammates know that if they speak on their true feelings about the owners, or what they really think about the accusations and the treatment Deshaun has received in response to them, that they will likely face retaliation themselves.
But Sunday’s developments, starting with the home crowd booing Deshaun in the introductions and culminating in the shocking spectacle of a substantial portion of the home crowd reveling in his serious injury, gave these players an outlet to vent their feelings about everything else. Which is exactly why they went on about how “the world is against” Deshaun, and praised him for being “a model citizen.” And it’s exactly why the NFL’s corporate hacks are falling all over themselves to misrepresent and conceal this narrative.
It’s truly spectacular when one steps back to behold the big picture here:
1. After last week’s 4-point Browns loss in Philly where Deshaun completed 10 of his 11 passes in leading his team into scoring position on three of four second-half drives, the NFL’s media organs went into overdrive, including with a preposterous front page ESPN feature, to flog the narrative that Deshaun should be benched in favor of long-time backup Jameis Winston, assigning all of the blame to the QB for the Browns offensive failures despite obvious alternative explanations, including mainly an injury riddled offensive line that’s been playing rookies and 4th and 5th stringers. (Hence, last week’s piece at this site titled, “The NFL’s slavemasters are cracking down on Deshaun Watson to an unprecedented degree.”)
2. Then, at this week’s game, the narrative-poisoned fans booed Deshaun mercilessly in the pregame warmups, and rejoiced as he was carted off the field after his ACL snapped, finally causing the players (and other prominent observers) to push their tightly enforced boundaries to speak out in defense of Deshaun and vent their feelings about the bigger picture of what’s been happening to him.
3. And look what happens next, like clockwork: The NFL’s paid henchmen start cracking the whip again, in unison, this time not just at Deshaun but at the players who supported him too, even the likes of reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett and The World Wide G.O.A.T. himself LeBron James are afforded no mercy here. They need to all know their place, shut their mouths, and most importantly there can’t be any suggestion that Deshaun is a good citizen, let alone a victim or martyr here, for any reason at all. It’s “shut up and dribble,” but the NFL version.
And your talking heads in the local and national press have to tie themselves in knots to avoid the big picture and pretend that the suspicious and retaliatory nature of the accusations against Deshaun couldn’t possibly be motivating the players here. That narrative is simply not permitted by the NFL’s slavemaster class and their sponsors, including not least the U.S. military and weapons manufacturers, who depend on the death of both critical thought and political accountability to thrive. Of course the malign influence of this class is having disastrous effects all over the globe, and in much worse and more unthinkable ways than is at issue with the Cleveland Browns and their quarterback, but it should be recognized, named, and called out wherever it exists, and it’s especially easy to recognize here in what’s happening with the Cleveland Browns and Deshaun Watson.
Again, all those responsible, whether wittingly or unwittingly, should be ashamed. But even if they’re not, they should at least understand that decent people with half a brain see what’s happening here; including those in the Browns locker room who, thankfully, spoke up last week for their teammate. It’s as much as a Browns fan has had to be proud of in a while.
