Oh Hey, The NFL Blew It Again
*Long, deep exasperated sigh* Man…
Last week someone had an interview with Ben Roethlisberger where the interviewer was discussing the lack of playoff success after 2010 for him and the Steelers. Big Ben, a well-established selfish piece of shit, partially claimed it was because players today are “coddled”. Among other reasons to scoff, I laughed at the irony of a franchise QB complaining about coddling and moved on with my day. When the Watson news was finally announced on Monday, those words flew back into my mind like an arrow. Maybe he was right, in a twisted way.
Watson was recommended to get a 6 game suspension. 6 games. Ben Roethlisberger also got a 6-game suspension (reduced to 4 on appeal) after assaulting a woman in a bathroom and having another also accuse him. Watson sexually assaulted over 24. There’s no way to look at this and not see a disgusting lack of justice unless you are a red-pilled Browns dipshit Watson fan. This is probably the worst case of sexually predatory behavior we’ve seen come to light in the league. They gave Watson the same number of games that Roethlisberger got a decade ago despite an exponential amount of harm, crimes implicating one team, and then making the league look even worse once the Browns threw morality in the trash to get him. It’s just disgusting.
After the initial shock and anger wore off, I started laughing. I hadn’t followed the Watson case (as it pertained to the NFL justice system) very closely, so I learned a lot of things on Monday that illuminated the situation for me. This was a fuck-up far more complicated in its development than it might first seem. The NFL fucked it up, but not how I initially thought.
The NFL, after years of absolutely blowing it on cases such as Ray Rice, Zeke, Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Josh Gordon, insert other fuck up here, decided to take different steps when they re-wrote the newest CBA. Reduce Goodell’s power as judge/jury/executioner. They decided to take a step back from such direct action and divert judgments to a third party, an agreed-upon judge that would be presented cases from the NFL as a prosecutor and the NFLPA as the defender. This is how Judge Sue Robinson, the name you’ve seen thrown around as the maker of the judgment, got involved. She was the third party given the case to examine.
According to reports, the NFL didn’t use all 24+ women in their case against Watson, just the worst ones, and were pushing for a ruling of 1 year, a judgment most of us hoped for. Robinson instead gave a recommended sentence of 6 games. Pathetic. In her 16(!) page explanation (which is mostly lawyer talk), it appears Robinson generally understands Watson was a total piece of shit, but because there was no “precedent” for his crimes under this new disciplinary system and he was a first time offender (lol), that pulled the recommended sentence back. She did throw in the clause that Watson never be allowed to use a massage therapist not assigned to him by the team ever again, so that’s…something I guess. That should have been a given. Watson needs to be watched.
It’s a weak ruling. There’s plenty more to be mad about, including Robinson’s determination that Watson’s actions were “non-violent”, which caused many people to flip our desks at the pathetic distinction that seemed to help lead to the low punishment. It’s weak no matter how you slice it. Watson violated so many women and got less than half a season off.
The funny part, to me, is how the NFL played themselves here. Goodell can appeal, but I think the 6 game suspension stands without change. To introduce an entirely new process (one that I actually think wasn’t a bad idea) and then immediately go against it when they didn’t get the result they wanted would be a bad look and would probably result in some NFLPA action and possibly a suit. The NFL probably also wants this to fade into background noise as quickly as possible, hence the release of the Dolphins tampering judgment just one day later. Judge Robinson failed us on this one, and now what should have been an easy slam dunk is once again a complete fucking mess.
Everything about it sucks. All of it. Everyone failed here. The best thing we can do, as spectators, is to never stop bringing this up. This needs to follow Watson and damage the brand even worse than Roethlisberger did. A lot of people managed to carry the torch on calling Big Ben the rapist he is, we gotta be louder and harsher with Watson. Make the Browns regret it, make the NFL regret it, and let that stink follow him forever. That vocal bullying and holding back our money is the only power we really have.
EDIT: The NFL is officially appealing the ruling, so we might get some more games added on, my guess would be like another 2-4 games, at this point I think over 12 games is off the table. He should get steeply fined, too
Always gotta love the “no existing precedent” argument. Congratulations, now you’ve set the precedent lower than it should be.
The “best” part of the ruling wasn’t just the part about it being a non-violent crime. The best part was that the judge acknowledged that Deshaun Watson has not at any point showed any remorse of any of the actions in sexually assaulting literal dozens of women.
So I guess it’s just a sheer unweighted list.
Pros:
Did some minor charity work.
Didn’t beat the shit out of the victims while raping them.
No precedent of an NFL QB sexually assaulting THAT MANY people!
Cons:
Does not accept that he did anything wrong.
Victimized dozens of women in a structured, predatory premeditated crime.
Well, I guess slap on the wrist wins 3-2!
Things I learned from this ruling:
There are bad rapes and not-so-bad rapes.
Committing the same crime 24 times makes you a “first-timer”.
My days of cheering for the Browns as loveable underdogs are over.
Ben got 6 games for 2 accusations… that’s 3 games per accusation. THAT’S what the Judge should have used as a guideline. 24 accusations equals 72 game suspension. That’s what he should have received. Hell, he should have been kicked out of the league, entirely, and thrown in jail (still don’t understand what the hell TWO grand juries were thinking).
I can see how the grand juries acquitted him, I sat on one for a year in Texas and the process is 100% led by the prosecution, if they don’t think they can win the case they’ll steer the jury towards acquittal.
You have reports from the NY Times saying Watson’s lawyer was overinvolved at the DA’s office. Whole thing stinks of corruption.
It’s unfathomable that the testimony of 20+ different women, all with similar stories despite not knowing each other, is not considered enough evidence to win the case.
The thing that sucks about this situation is that sexual assault/misconduct is notoriously difficult to prove even when there’s penetration involved because unless you get a rape kit in very close proximity to the crime. Coerced assault is even more difficult because there may be little to no physical evidence which makes the prospect of a grand jury recommending charges virtually impossible. The system just isn’t set up to prosecute sexual assault.
The worst part is that outright false reports of sexual assault are actually very very rare. We’re talking like 5% of all sexual assault/rape reports. We’ve also seen that 1 in 6 women have been targeted by sexual assault with a percentage more likely not being public about their experience. I often urge people who are doubtful of the women involved in the Watson case to talk to women in their lives that they care about because they’ll likely be surprised with how many of them have been through this kind of stuff and not reported it.
So we have a system that cannot prosecute a crime that statistically happens pretty commonly. And every time a new case (or 30 of them) comes up we just point to precedent and say “oh gee, can’t do anything with this one” and another high profile offender gets let off easy and not only emboldens similar creeps, but further discourages victims form bringing their stories forward. The NFL fucked this up royally and the amount of people still cheering them and Watson on is pretty disgusting.
I couldn’t even be mad since being mad implies that I expected the judge to get it right or come close. At this point I’m just gonna continue to root for the Browns to implode and I’ll be the biggest Baltimore fan come week 7.
And we can’t forget that it came out at some point that the Texans not only completely knew about what was going on (heck, how could they not), but they actually wrote up special NDAs to try to keep it covered up.
I’m guessing the league isn’t going to be doing much, if anything, about that either.
Watson is a messed up dude. As bad as Rapelisberger has been, it seemed his incidents were off the cuff whereas Watson had premeditated the vast majority of these incidents and is one notch below Darren Sharper in what he was willing to do.
It’s getting tough to find an AFC North team to root for:
Browns – all of the above Watson stuff
Ravens – defended Ray Lewis and Ray Rice in the face of, um, fairly substantial evidence of murder/accessory to murder and assault, and in case #1 routinely berated the media for even asking questions
Bengals – some morally questionable stuff in the Pacman Jones, Vontaze Burfict days. And the long-standing accusations that their owner is phenomenally cheap and won’t spend on things like decent practice facilities or scouting
Steelers – the aforementioned Roethlisberger character stuff, not to mention the ones with the likes of James Harrison or Antonio Brown and others.
And I say that despite having some affection for all those teams, and having family who are die-hards for several of them. I guess some of those issues are in the past, and the teams have a chance to turn the page now, but it’s not like the history goes away totally either
And yes, I’m aware many other teams have various moral failings. It just seems very pronounced in this division recently.
The one thing I’ve heard since the ruling first came out that makes me hold out some hope that Deshaun Watson really gets his due is that it’s a conditional 6 games. He cannot go to a massage therapist without team supervision and will be out of team supervision for 6 weeks. There is no way on Earth Watson is able to stop himself from going to one during that period. The only question is, will he be caught
Also there’s still the hope that the NFL will appeal and bang him with the full season, but I’m not gonna hold my breath for it and I wouldn’t even necessarily blame them for choosing not to
Congratulations to Dan Snyder, he now has some competition in the “I did lots of evil things and got away with a slap on the wrist” category.
And Stephen Ross has beers that need holding too.
Ross is not in the same category evil-wise, he’s just a complete moron
Insert other fuck up, like a certain scum bag kicker that was once predicted on your podcast!
I’d be very surprised if the NFL doesn’t appeal the ruling to try and get Watson a longer suspension.
From what I read, the ruling has been made that in order to be consistent with the other ruling of the NFL for similar situation, and prevents the NFL from changing his rules just for Watson’s car.
Basically that ruling points to the lack of consistence and logic of the NFL when it comes to game suspension and other penalties.
Is that Romanowski in the middle?
Pretty sure
Of course those dirty Raiders would’ve signed him! *Ignores 1996-2001*
So NFL logic:
Accidently shooting a Gun=Deflating Footballs>Stomping on a Player>Domestic Violence(1 person)=24 cases of Sexual Assault=Overuse of PEDS>Insider Trading=Gun Charge>
Substance Abuse >Targeting>Gambling>Weed=Vehicular Manslaughter=Punching a Coach>Special type of Domestic Violence=Dog Fighting=Child Abuse=Drunk Driving>Murder
Seems fairly straightforward, yeah /s
IIRC isn’t the reason that only 4 women were used because the other 20 settled? While we all can generally understand that most if not all of them were also assaulted, settling by definition is not an admission, so I can see why the court wouldn’t use them as a factor even though I think they should.
Lack of precedence is lame, imo the very fact that the judge acknowledged lack of remorse should’ve been the end all be all.
I don’t think the settled cases matter much here because the NFL situation isn’t a legal trial, its an internal discussion on whether or not to professionally reprimand him. A league issue, not a criminal one.
I read the reason for the low number was the NFL wanted to use the ugliest of the cases as a sort of collective representative umbrella instead of going through the details of everything.
The levels of Irony of both Big Ben and Robert Kraft commenting on this punishment ……..
It’s only partially ironic. While what Kraft did is unquestionably morally icky, no one has ever accused that the sexual activity there was coercive or forced, unlike with Watson and Big Ben. It’s still gross, it’s still probably illegal (if the way they got the evidence hadn’t also been illegal and also seriously gross that many people who were getting legitimate, non-sexual massages also got videotaped naked by the police), but there’s still a big difference between receiving an offered happy ending and forcing someone into giving you one.
Out of curiosity, Dave, how many weeks with 0 football do you get events on Monday and Tuesday that you just know are definitely going to fill up the rest of the week’s comics? I’m at the point where I don’t know which story I’m more outraged by: powerful people getting off/extremely light punishments for sexual assault is unfortunately nothing new, but 24 is more than expected for that kind of story; and then on Tuesday we got the “OK, the owner of the dolphins DID tamper, and DID talk about how important draft position was, but was DEFINITELY ONLY JOKING when he mentioned paying for losses by the exact amount that Brian Flores alleges.”
On second thought, definitely more outraged by Deshaun Watson, there’s too much hilarity in the Dolphins story to be anywhere near as outraged over.
Well, I’m definitely more outraged by the “Ross was joking” thing, but that’s only because that means we’re stuck with him until he kicks the bucket
At the end of the day if you don’t get criminally charged and found guilty you’re innocent in my book. I see no issue with Watson playing. If he was guilty he’d be in jail and out of the league wouldn’t he? That’s the great thing about America true justice. I hope Watson balls out and makes a super bowl run. As for the NFL they need to work with the CBA and actually make a zero tolerance domestic violence, sexual assault clause if they don’t want things like this happening.
Man I don’t know how anyone can look at the American justice system as it stands now and actually be proud of it and think it actually works just fine. The level of cognitive dissonance and blind nationalism required to actually believe that in 2022 is astounding.
Read a book, here’s a good start
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620971933/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=boorio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=1620971933
A high bar for proof is generally a good thing, but it does not make the process equivalent to being accurate across the board. Sexual assault without hard, impersonal evidence is notoriously difficult to prove. By the same token, people sentenced to death are later found to be innocent by such evidence all the time.
I’d rather America’s than Japan’s where guilty verdicts are handed down in more than 99% of cases, but that doesn’t also then mean that it’s perfect.
I wanted to check out that 99% conviction rate stat. Turns out it’s true enough, but I feel needs context. Consider the last line bolded.
From wikipedia: “Japan has a conviction rate of over >99.8%, even higher than contemporary authoritarian regimes.[1] Scholars say the biggest reason for Japan’s very high conviction rate is the country’s low prosecution rate and the way Japan calculates its conviction rate is different from other countries.[2][3][4] According to them, Japanese prosecutors will prosecute only the very few cases in which they are most likely to be guilty and not many others.[2][3][4] According to Keiichi Muraoka, a professor at Hakuoh University, prosecutors in Japan have a lot of authority, and they don’t prosecute even if they have a lot of evidence, and only pursue cases that are certain to lead to prosecution.[2] According to him, the 60% suspension of prosecution in Japan is due to excessive fear that prosecutors will lose the case and ruin their reputation.[2] According to Ryo Ogiso, a professor at Chuo University, prosecutors suspend prosecution for 60% of cases they receive, and end prosecution for the remaining 30% through a simplified judicial process. Only about 8% of cases are actually prosecuted, and this low prosecution rate is the reason for Japan’s high conviction rate.[3][5]”
That is incredibly interesting and also thank you for looking up that remarkably important context
“If he was guilty he’d be in jail and out of the league wouldn’t he?”
Because no one EVER gets away with sexual assault, or any other crime. The System works!
Really? The worst case of sexually predatory behavior?
Man…everyone forgets the non-quarterbacks. Darren Sharper is the Tom Brady of NFL sexual assault. He drugged at least 15 women and raped 12 of them. He chuckles in the direction of Deshaun assaulting all masseuses
You’re kind of right, the thing is, we didn’t know Darren Sharper was a serial rapist until after he retired, so his future NFL career wasn’t an issue like it currently is with Watson.
That is true. I didn’t consider that element. Just can’t imagine a bigger monster than Sharper that the league has seen
For what it’s worth, it’s the reason why he’s not in the HOF.
Robinson did her job here. She pointed out the absurdity of the rules she was asked to arbitrate, drawing attention to the ridiculous dissociation of violent vs. non-violent assault, among other things. I think she did a great job off pointing out the written rules and inconsistent precedent, handibg things back to Goodell who has the authority to do more than report on precedent and terribly work CBAs.
PS – ben was suspended for a single credible accusation. The other one happened in a different year, with corroborating statements suggesting it was consensual. More importantly, ben showed contrition and changed his behavior, while Watson is still proclaiming innocence.
The reasoning the judge used is depressingly normal in the labor context. It’s the same reason why police chiefs can’t fire bad cops – the CBA and labor law value “precedent” and once you set a precedent of slapping people on the wrist for horrific conduct, that gets set in stone. The league knows this and the union knows this. There’s nothing really that surprising about this result from a labor perspective. It’s just awful. All that said, the lion’s share of the blame must go to the prosecutors who failed to make a case against Watson despite all the evidence, and of course the Browns for hiring him.
Picture of Deshaun Watson rubbing his dick against a masseuse’s hand
Picture of Ben Roethlisberger fully raping a college student at a bar
Dave, in Pam’s clothes from the office: “They’re the same picture”
You kinda missed on this one, the arbitrator essentially decides whether or not a punishment can be imposed based on the evidence presented. Robinson essentially found Robinson guilty on all charges
The suspension imposed was way too light yes, but the way the CBA is written the NFL can really just appeal it and impose whatever punishment they want anyway
Here the NFL now has Watson dead to rights