Deshaun Watson and the Browns Look Worse Than Ever

The team has forfeited its right to take moral stands down the road, and shouldn’t count on its QB conducting himself with basic human decency.

Deshaun Watson still doesn’t get it, and the Browns don’t care if he does. He keeps acting like the wronged party, incapable of self-reflection, saying things he doesn’t mean and then admitting he doesn’t mean them, totally focused on advancing his own interests, and why shouldn’t he?

That’s what the Browns are paying him to do.

After the NFL and its players union settled Thursday on an 11-game suspension and $5 million fine, plus counseling, Watson walked back his phony half-apology before last week’s preseason game, saying “I’m going to continue to stand on my innocence” and that he apologized because “a lot of people that are triggered.” He said, “I have to do what’s best for Deshaun Watson at the end of the day,” like empathy is a character flaw. The Browns are suckers if they believe in him and frauds if they don’t. Which is worse?

Watson will not be eligible to play until Dec. 4, when the Browns travel to Houston to face the Texans :: Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports

Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam acted like not commenting on Watson’s conduct is some kind of principled position. Jimmy Haslam applauded himself for respecting the NFL’s disciplinary process as though he had a choice. He also said, “We as an organization realize how sensitive it is, how emotional it is,” which was infuriatingly condescending, the organizational equivalent of “we understand you’re mad.”

Dee Haslam kept saying “counseling is a process,” and Browns general manager Andrew Berry said, “The journey for personal growth, it’s a process.” Yeah, sure, but why did these processes have to start with a record-breaking fully guaranteed $230 million contract? Why did Jimmy Haslam say last week that Watson is “remorseful” when Watson made it very clear Thursday that he isn’t? How did the Haslams and Berry manage to stand up there when they clearly have no backbone?

The Browns are trying to rationalize their way to a championship, and they think we’re too gullible to see it.

When they acquired Watson in March, they did not insist he express a shred of contrition. They let Watson define their stance on Watson, and they still do. Never mind that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called Watson’s actions “predatory.” Never mind that, in suspending Watson for six games, league disciplinary officer Sue L. Robinson wrote that his “pattern of behavior was egregious,” “predatory,” showed “reckless disregard,” and that “Watson engaged in sexual assault (as defined by the NFL)” against four massage therapists.

Hell, never mind anything Watson says. It’s all out of convenience, anyway.

In March, after the trade, he said he had no interest in settling the lawsuits that had been filed against him: “My intent is to clear my name as much as possible, and that’s what I’m focused on.” He has since settled 23 of them.

In March, he said, “I don’t have any regrets. ... The hardest part is having everyone come at me from different directions and not being able to speak about it because of the ongoing investigations.” Then, after Robinson cited his “lack of expressed” remorse as a contributing factor in suspending him for six games, he told the league’s TV network, “Look, I want to say that I’m truly sorry to all of the women that I have impacted in this situation. The decisions that I made in my life that put me in this position, I would definitely like to have back.”

By Thursday, Watson was back to clearing his name again.

“People deserve second chances,” Jimmy Haslam said. “I struggle a little bit: Is he never supposed to play again?”

That’s a good question. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Watson is supposed to play again. Why do the Browns have to completely kowtow to him?

Berry said people shouldn’t be “defined by the mistakes that they made,” but Watson says he didn’t make any mistakes. Dee Haslam said, “We can talk about Deshaun or we can talk about the major issues the country faces” with sexual assault, as though it’s one or the other. Jimmy Haslam said the Browns want Watson to be the best player he can be and “more importantly, be the best person he can be.” I did not realize the Browns are paying Watson $230 million to be his guidance counselor.

We have seen many instances of a team acquiring a player with a criminal or immoral past, acknowledging that the player had misbehaved but arguing that he deserved a chance to resume his career. This was not one of those cases. The Browns begged Watson to be the face of their franchise.

They sent three first-round picks, a third-rounder and two fourth-rounders to Houston for Watson and a sixth-rounder. Then they negotiated with him like he was a coveted free agent instead of a disgraced player under contract. The Browns signed Watson to a deal that included a 2022 salary of $1.035 million, which would conveniently save Watson from losing too much money when he was suspended. Berry gave the not-very-believable explanation that they structured the contract this way for salary-cap reasons.

The Browns could say the contract was a condition of Watson waiving his no-trade clause. This only affirms how wrong they were to do it. The one outcome they couldn’t stomach was him going to another team, and so they let him dictate all the terms.

Organizations need to treat stars like valuable, intelligent parts of the operation. The Browns are treating Watson like a monarch. They could have made a public apology as a condition of his signing, even if it was a vague one. Instead, when Watson used his introductory press conference to say he did nothing wrong and had no regrets, the Browns verbally supported that contention.

“We felt good about Deshaun as a person,” Berry said then. “We felt good about what we learned about the cases where we felt comfortable bringing him into the building. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have made the trade.”

Five months have passed. The Browns look worse than ever. They are counting on Watson conducting himself with basic human decency when he returns, and also on him playing at an MVP level. But what if he doesn’t?

Have the Browns considered that their own city will turn on them if Watson is just pretty good and the team struggles? Have they thought about how Watson, who was beloved by fan bases in Houston and at Clemson, might handle getting booed at home? Or what they are doing to the rest of the organization, from employees who are appalled that Watson is the face of the franchise to the poor social media staffer stuck with writing “do we want people to read this or not?” headlines such as this?

The Browns have forfeited the right to take moral stands down the road. They have signaled to their roster that misconduct will be tolerated, maybe ignored completely. They are building their team around a player who says we shouldn’t judge his innocence “just because settlements and things like that happen.”

Jimmy Haslam says the team is comforted by Watson’s “track record prior to these events,” before quickly adding, “I’m not at all minimizing the ‘this.’” But, of course, the Browns are minimizing the allegations against Watson, because Watson insists upon it. The Haslams might own the Browns, but Watson owns them now. They can only hope he treats them well. Given his … um, track record, I wouldn’t count on it.