This is a story that is not going anywhere, nor should it.
DeShaun Watson first player in NBA. Excuse me NFL history,
that have a fully guaranteed
200 million dollar plus contract.
That's what the Cleveland Browns. Did
that was part of the price.
The Browns paid to get DeShaun Watson
away from Houston
into Cleveland. So there are multiple first-round picks are
multiple draft picks.
There's that 230 million dollar contract
and now there's a waiting game. There's a waiting game from
the NFL.
What happens now with with DeShaun Watson? What will
the NFL do?
Will there be a suspension there? Most certainly would be
a suspension in my opinion will be a suspension. How long would
that suspension be?
What is to come of the 22 open civil cases?
Accusing
DeShaun Watson of either, sexual misconduct or sexual
assault?
What's going to happen with those.
Does he settle
any of these cases? Does he admit
any wrongdoing? Does he fight each of them?
What happens there? And then, there's the big question that
has nothing to do with the legal system. At all really has
to do
with your conscience and we're done. We're not just talking
about Cleveland. We're talking about football fans, nationally
because maybe it's not your team right now,
but
Chances are the way the NFL operates, Alyssa be honest,
the way the NFL operates. Chances are your team,
your fandom will be challenged with one of these situations.
Everybody has had something like this with it with their
team. Like it's easy.
I was talking to a friend of mine
from Cleveland
over the weekend and I said to him, look it's easy.
When you look at another team and they've got a guy and you
can villainize him.
Okay, look at that. We would never do it. We would never do
it. LOL. Look at that view, you sold your soul
all winning at all cost. It doesn't matter. It's just
the bottom line and you don't have a player like that or if you
don't know that you have a player like that.
It's easy to sit there and wag your finger and say we never do
it. But then when it comes to your, when it comes to your
area code, when it comes to your ZIP code,
when it comes to your laundry,
how do you handle it?
And so that's what Cleveland is going through right now and
we'll get into that. But before we get into that, I just want to
want to hear what Nick is Stereo had to say, let's play
some sound from Houston, general manager, Nick and
stereo who had this on his watch as a first year GM.
Year, first year GM kiss, Aereo
walks into the job.
Has a huge contract. So that's the good news.
Highest paid GM, and football
and had never done the job before on his own. That's
the good news. The bad news is you come in.
And you've got to deal with the DeShaun Watson situation. He
dealt with it. He's moving on from it. It's now Cleveland's
problem.
But here's Nick and stereo talking about DeShaun Watson.
I think the biggest thing probably
yesterday provides. Everybody is Clarity.
Just in terms of
Direction. I think the Sean has Clarity and his end relative to
what his future holds from a football standpoint. I think
there's some things, you know,
still on a legal front that probably, you don't want to
really get into that. But, you know, I have to take place but
just Clarity for
him individually. I think Clarity far organization,
in terms of what the expectation is moving forward.
So Clarity Clarity for for their organization and what
the expectation is moving forward. Now, I don't
I don't really I don't want to read between the lines on what
he's saying there. But
is he trying to say that there's a certain kind of
player that the Houston Texans
will employ going forward? As he is that
a DeShaun Watson
shot
that once they found out about these things whether
whether DeShaun Watson asked to be traded or not. Once they
found out about these things was DeShaun Watson. Betrayed
it, but that's neither here. Nor there
really want to focus on Cleveland, and the divide that
exists
with, with Browns
football fans. I was really intrigued to hear, Charles
Robinson say yesterday. No, his wife
grew up in Cleveland,
and how there's this,
this conflict
with Browns fans, where his wife is not just didn't know
how to feel about this.
And how
his his Others, his brother-in-law
or brothers-in-law.
Are all on board. Hey, yay, Browns. Let's go for it. Let's
go away. Now. We got a player.
Now. We got a chance to win a championship. And I'd like to
say, I'd like to say that it's the desperation
that puts Cleveland in this position, but I'm not sure,
that's it. Look, we know the Browns are desperate. I joked
about it off. The top that oh, how things have changed. You
hadn't been to the Super Bowl
at the time of the shot in 1989 and they still
have never appeared in the Super Bowl. One of the few
franchises that has never been to the Super Bowl my manicure.
Of panthers expansion, team been to the Super Bowl.
You know, Jacksonville Jaguars haven't been to the Super Bowl
but
you know, but the teams that just kind of sprung up,
we're able to get to the Super Bowl in the Browns have been on
the doorstep several times and not been able to do it. So
I think that desperation speaks to it and having a lot of
quarterbacks over the years that speaks to it as well. But
here's the truth of the truth of it is
They were teams that don't have the Brown story that don't have
their narrative that were also in the conversation in the mix
for Deshaun Watson. So it wasn't just hell, of course,
Cleveland would do it
on one hand if you want to.
If you want to feel good about yourself.
As a Browns fan who likes this trade, you say,
well,
other people were doing it too.
If it hadn't been us, it would have been someone else. Sure,
you can say that.
But that's also a confession that you're not original
that, you have no distinction that you don't, you're not on
a different moral High Ground than anyone else. And for some
Browns fans. They say somewhat I didn't get into this
routing game to be on the moral High Ground. I don't care
or maybe you do care and you get into the you start playing
this game, innocent until proven guilty and he hasn't
been proven guilty, it proven guilty of anything and that
there's not going to be
A criminal charge
against DeShaun Watson.
You can go down that list over and over, but I think
for me and Michael said yesterday, Michael Smith said
yesterday that what really?
Anger is a lot of people
is the money
is a new contract for Deshaun Watson,
and I can understand that, that's not what does it for me?
What really bothers me more than anything? And this is, as
I said, it's not just a Cleveland story. This is an NFL
story. What bothers me is
the NFL's unwillingness.
I'm not going to say inability
the NFL's unwillingness
to
handle.
Cases, where? Where players are accused of
abusing women.
Like the NFL.
Refuses, I'll say it that way, the NFL refuses to get that
right
there. There are many, there are many places
the league as a whole. Can go
to get advice on this
seek wise counsel. So you can you can
talk to people and say, no. No, this is how you handle
cases, that really at their root
have
have the pillars of misogyny and sexism at the root.
That's what it is. There are many smart people out there
who could advise the commissioner and everyone else.
Every every
owner and every ownership group.
If you ever wonder, I can, what should we be doing? How do we
send a strong message? How do we get this? Right? How do we
discourage it?
The league could do it, but the league doesn't, the league
hasn't gotten it, right. We talked a lot about Ray Rice.
And that situation
League, didn't get that, right?
And there have been many cases
since the league just can't get it. Right. So, I think that's
what angers me that.
That's part one
that when it comes to this.
The players usually
don't pay a great consequence when it comes to the NFL.
That's one.
And then two.
Whenever general managers and ownership groups, get even
the light doesn't even have to be green fully whenever NFL and
ownership groups.
Even like they hit the light is flickering from caution from
yellow to Green.
They go they go. There's all out pursuit of Superstar
Talent.
At the expense of everything else
at the expense of everything else. I've told this story before
old school. Now old school, like look. Hey, I'm not going
to apologize for being a student of History. So I'll
give you an old stool like those old school example.
To make the case today.
Now,
there's okay. I wasn't alive for this. Okay, I wouldn't
allow for this, but
but this story's has always, this anecdote,
has always jumped out at me, because there was some truth there
from a president
who wasn't always concerned with telling the truth.
And that's Richard Nixon back in the day, Richard Nixon, you
know, he was obsessed with recording things. He record had
recording devices all over the Oval Office
and and Richard Nixon.
He had a thing. If you can imagine he's a republican had
a thing for the Kennedys from Massachusetts. So you always
wanted, he was telling his advisor. Spent can't, we
can't we get somebody in the Boston Globe to write something
negative about the Kennedys. I want to make them look bad
and eventually he confided to people close to him. He said,
you know what, the average person you know what
the average person is concerned about
if they got money in their pocket
and they can afford to get a beer and a hot dog, his point is
and listen
controversy controversy. It will only last for a little bit
and then people will move on.
And I think that's disappointment. Am
I disappointed in that? Yes, do I accept it? No,
I don't accept it. I won't accept it in my personal life,
but I think that's what we're dealing with. And so
I'd love to be pleasantly surprised
that that this outrage, that we hear right now
that we hear it and we see it in Cleveland.
I'd love to be pleasantly, surprised and Cleveland is the
That until there's some resolution with DeShaun Watson
Cleveland fans,
the majority of Cleveland fans. I know this is not the case,
but I'd love to see it where the majority of Cleveland fans
say. No, we will not rest until we're sure
that our quarterback.
Is innocent of all the things that have been thrown at him.
He's innocent of all of these charges. I'd love to see that
but
I'm not I'm not sure that's going to happen. And that's
generally
how it goes
in professional sports. And I think that's the thing. That
amass the thing, that bothers me the most. All right, call me
naive. Okay, move on grow up. This is, this is how it is,
you know, Cleveland's not the first
The Browns aren't the first organization to do something
like this or not, the first organization to make these
types of decisions,
but I think that's what bothers me. The most will see what
happens
with the Sean Watson and we'll see how the Browns choose to
handle this
publicly
when they are forced to answer questions outside of
a statement. I mean, you can say all sorts of things in
the statement and you can go over it and you have your PR people.
Look over your legal, people
look over it and make sure
That
no participles dangling
and everything is airtight.
But we'll really get to it.
When when
they interact with members of the media, who I believe will
ask the questions that are on the hearts of many
clevelanders.
Look, I know it's tough.
When your team isn't winning.
Sometimes you're willing to do anything
to win. But is there a
Is there a point where you say I'm not willing to do that. And
the last thing I'll say before we take a break and talk about.
The other Cleveland quarterback. He still, he still
Cleveland quarterback, technically still
a quarterback.
They got three of them. The Browns do right. Now. I got
DeShaun Watson.
They got Jacoby percent
and the other guy
that we're going to talk about in a little bit. But before we
get there, I just want to say I am encouraged by this.
The Cleveland Rape
Crisis Center has seen a spike in donations from fans who are
angry,
who are angry about what's happening right now with the browser.
Angry about DeShaun Watson, being a member of the Browns.
And not only that, I think it's just a combination of being
angry about Watson
being on their team
and what their team was willing to do.
To get Watson to acquire him
because Watson wasn't feeling Cleveland.
Now he better not say
And they better not say oh, you know, I've always
I've always loved this organization. You know,
I'm studying Paul Brown and
yeah, you know, you know a Bernie Kosar fan,
I remember the days and you know Bill Belichick was there.
Yeah, you know, they
got to the playoffs and they beat the Patriots back in and
I don't know.
Always, I love the good people of the Midwest. No. No,
the child watching was not feeling Cleveland till
Cleveland said here. Here, take our franchise,
take the franchise 230 million dollars. You got it. Fully
guaranteed. That's when he was filling. That's when he started
to feel Cleveland. So I'm encouraged by these
by these fans who have donated. And you know, what? Wow,
you know what? I'm also encouraged by
my friends.
That's right. My friends in Western, New York.
Now,
I've had some issues with the Buffalo Bills,
but I love the charitable Spirit of the fanbase,
like, Buffalo. If there's a good, cause if you got a good
cause no matter where you are, whether you're in Los Angeles,
if your opponent in Los Angeles, your opponent
in Houston, if your opponent in Chicago Buffalo, they see
a good cause for you.
Those Buffalo fans will get on board. Buffalo has also
donated To the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center because it's
a good cause.
So that is that is the good news here will
will be on top of the story. We will continue to follow it.
There's no easy. There's no easy answer.
There's no quick resolution to it,
but I think it's
I can preach for a little bit. I think it's our job to
continue to talk about it. Not just go on as if it's business
as usual because it's certainly not business. As usual.