Falcons Backtracking About Pursuit of Controversial Deshaun Watson Trade?

How serious were Arthur Blank and the Atlanta Falcons about trading for Deshaun Watson?

Timm Hamm | Apr 4, 2022

Deshaun Watson is now a member of the Cleveland Browns. But before that deal was finalized, it seemed the top two teams in the running were the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons.

Matt Ryan

Deshaun Watson

Marcus Mariota

However, while addressing the media at the league meetings, Falcons owner Arthur Blank tried to downplay his team’s pursuit of Watson.

“We explored it enough to where we spent some time with him for maybe an hour and 15 minutes,” Blank said. “He and his agent and trainer or something. So I mean it got to that stage. So it was a worthwhile use of our time. We had an opportunity to understand [things] from his perspective and ask some questions and what have you. But after that, we didn’t have any really further interaction with either the Texans to speak of or with his agent.”

"No further interactions" can mean a lot of things. Here, what we think it means, is that Atlanta had no need for further interaction since Houston had already accepted Cleveland's offer.

Blank also defended the Falcons' pursuit of Watson despite his well-known legal issues.

“I think for us, to the level of pursuit that we had, the exploratory stage, I think was the right thing to do,” Blank said. “Would it have made sense to go further than that? It would depend on, you know, what a much more intensive process would have revealed or discussions we would have had.”

Blank leads us to believe that the Falcons would've needed more information before finalizing the trade had things progressed in that direction. But the deal was already agreed on between the two teams. Were Blank and the Falcons going to back down if Watson agreed to play for Atlanta?

Then there's the situation of the Falcons' then-quarterback and his roster bonus. The Falcons talked Matt Ryan into moving the due date for his $7.5 million roster bonus - albeit by only four days - while the team dealt with trying to trade him.

If Atlanta's pursuit of Watson was simply exploratory, they could've made that known as soon as reports came out about the final two teams being the Falcons and the Saints. But no one within the organization ever indicated that more homework was needed before they would finalize a deal.

Arthur Blank

Arthur Smith

Deshaun Watson

Why?

Because it's very apparent they wanted Watson. And bad. Even risking and ultimately fracturing the club's relationship with the then-face of the franchise, Matt Ryan.

In the end, Watson didn't pick New Orleans or Atlanta, he went north to Cleveland. And now the Browns organization is experiencing a bit of backlash for the decision to trade for him. So clearly, Blank is trying to avoid any similar criticism for his pursuit of the former Houston signal-caller.

But again, if the Falcons had just a passing interest in Watson, we should've heard about it much sooner than after the fact.

Published Apr 4, 2022

TIMM HAMM