Watson Starts To Cover It Up
News broke this week that DeShaun Watson has officially settled 20 of the 24 civil suits filed against him. Seems we finally broke through to the moment where the people involved all attempt to push it away because dragging it on won’t end well even if exonerated. He did his perversion, got called out, had the case build, and things did not go away after he was not indicted.
I would wager the NFL and Watson were sort of hinging on that happening and everything after that has caused a lot of internal league turmoil. It is notoriously hard to prosecute sexual assault cases so once he doesn’t get indicted, he’s free! Right? Nope. The high profile of the case just caused more people to look into it and the subsequent investigation made it look even worse for everyone involved. Now it is in Watson’s best interest to throw his obscene new contract at the problem to make it go away. The NFL wants that too. This is a massive black eye, and they have the ultimate punishment decision coming soon.
Some of us think this was Watson’s way to try and lower his own suspension. If he can make the problem go away with cash and NDAs, the casual public will move on and his suspension can be minimized. Some of us will be outraged anyway, but the NFL knows that and does not care. They just want the majority to move on. Watch it be something like 10 games reduced to 8 on appeal. It should still be a season (well, it should still be for life, but let’s be realistic here), but I would not be surprised if we see Watson on the field come, say, November.
Right now the wrinkle is that he didn’t settle all of them. Yet. 4 women have yet to take his money. We’ll have to see what happens there. I imagine it just means those 4 will command a larger settlement and it’s only a matter of time. This isn’t fun for the victims and they probably want this drama to stop sooner than later too, but we might have a few determined cases.
What’s really exciting to me is that as I made this comic, some news about the Dan Snyder Commanders probe came out, and it’s a doozy. Our favorite irredeemable piece of shit spent 1.6 million to settle and coverup a 2009 incident with an airline employee who was reportedly sexually harassed by Snyder. Snyder’s mostly been indirectly involved with most of the Commanders story so far, as the kind of passive evil god that allowed and encouraged the toxic workplace but was rarely directly implicated with actions. This is an action. Snyder’s side claims it was extortion. It was handled in a way that hid it from the league regardless. As always, my expectations this actually forces a change are very low, but every brick we can throw at that scumbag is worth stockpiling.
The NFL is headed for some choppy waters on the PR department with this Commanders probe and the Watson case/punishment. I do not envy their PR department right now.
I gaurantee it.
I reread the entire comic with the salesman in a ridiculous Steve Martin French accent after seeing that.
– Joey Nometh
If, and this is a HUGE if, Snyder does get forced out, will the Commies change their name again? I still refer to the as the WFT, and I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to the Commanders name.
I think teams like the 49ers, Packers, Patriots, Steelers, Browns, Texans and Saints are just as odd. Probably took some getting used to when they first came out.
From what it sounds like, one woman wants her day in court and will refuse to settle. If the trial has enough details come out, either this DA or the next DA could still press for criminal charges. One could argue that there was more than 5 victims and thus there is no statue of limitations in the state of Texas.
I’m glad some of these women are getting something. It’s a terrible system that has to buy justice for you since it’s incapable of competently prosecuting for it. I’ve talked with my fiancee, who is a lawyer, about this and she said that in many ways SA is the ultimate catch-22 for our justice system. SA traditionally has a very low percentage of false reports (somewhere between 3-6%) and yet it very rarely comes with actionable evidence. So, we can’t prosecute it even though most of the time we probably should.
So, what would you do if you were one of them? Knowing that no matter what you do, Watson will still play football eventually, will still make an obscene amount of money and very likely get another fat contract after this one. You could try to expose him as best you can in civil court (which DOES have a much lower standard of proof) but that’s a lot of effort, a lot of time, a lot of money, and you might lose. Or you could just take whatever hush money he’s offering and get something for ending all of this and he kind of maybe admits that he sort of may have done something wrong. You get a little something for being called a liar, a whore, a gold digger, for all of the abuse random people wearing brightly colored jerseys hurl into the abyss at you.
And maybe after all of that you can start to move on….fuck Deshaun Watson, fuck the Browns, and fuck the NFL for letting him off easy when they inevitably do.
Heading into the draft after he left Clemson, I thought Watson would be the best QB in the draft. His first few years in the league, he seemed like a nice, quiet dude that just wanted to ball. He was easy to like and root for and I enjoyed him as a player and saw a bright future ahead of him.
The Browns were perpetual underdogs and held that lovable loser status. I found myself rooting for them more often than not. I genuinely hoped for them to succeed and enjoyed them making strides with Baker under center.
Now, I find myself hoping that Watson gets no less than a season long suspension. I also hope that Baker goes elsewhere, gets a chip on his shoulder (bigger than the one he usually has), and wins big time. And I hope the Browns suffer for it.
This is the worst possible thing Browns fans could go through after finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I feel for y’all. Also, let’s give the Texans some credit. They straight up sat the dude and took the L’s right on the chin. In a league driven by money and owner greed, they actually did the right thing and tried to put some distance in between them and the PR nightmare Watson was/is.
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And remember, these are just the 24 that have been willing to attach themselves to the suits. The reports that he had *over 60* different masseuse contacts means we haven’t even heard from half of them. (And, yes, there will be a few that were okay with it, and others that didn’t like it but shrugged it off, but I’m betting a large amount of the remainder are women who just understandably don’t want to deal with the probable negative attention it would bring.)
Whether he did it or not, if he isn’t in prison by the end of the year then someone fucked up.
The NFL has leaked that they’re looking for a season-long suspension, the NFLPA has leaked that they’re trying to reduce discipline to nothing. This will go to an independent arbitration first, which will then go to Goodell on appeal. My guess is that the NFL might increase the discipline if the result of the independent arbitration is lower than what they wanted and the public reacts with outrage. It’s a pretty ingenious way to read the room, really
I would hope that the 4 remaining cases are people ready to take a principled stand. I’m afraid they may have avoided settling the 4 weakest cases so they can try to gain some ground in the court of public opinion by fighting the cases they can win.
I’m guessing it’s the former, because a few weeks back they said one of Miami’s stipulations for a trade was that the a-hole moron had to settle ALL of them. And he couldn’t settle 4, so the deal fell through. I’m guessing it’s the same 4, and if they’ve turned down his money by now, they are possibly willing to attempt scorching his arse in court.
Tbh I just assumed this whole time he wasn’t gonna get away with it. The details were too graphic. I think… at least based on my understanding of everything I’ve seen… that the 4 remaining cases are the ones with the best chance to actually get him in trouble. Here’s hoping.
Lfmao. Kamara got suspended for 6 games for a fight.
Screw this dude. Seriously.