A glimpse
into what will happen
if and when the NFL decides to impose a suspension unpaid
on DeShaun Watson, there's two paths the NFL can go,
you can go paid, leave commissioner exempt list
and there's no
independent body that gets involved. No. Disciplinary
officer, who has any jurisdiction to commissioner
has full and complete discretion to put a player on
paid leave. He took it off the table.
In late March and said, I would just suspend him at this point.
He'd probably like to have a do-over on that because right
now I think the best path, the easiest path. The appropriate
path is to go with paid leave because Shireen
the league is worn out and is one of the things we reported
last night by this, drip drip, more lawsuits,
bad news. HBO, it all started with the HBO. Real Sports
feature 24 days ago,
then comes another lawsuit, then comes
the New York. Times article, from Jenny Ventus, then comes
another article, another lawsuit. And then two more
lawsuits are coming then. Who knows? How many more you got to
wait until basically the middle of March. Next year, when
the statute of limitations on any potential plaintiffs will
close, assuming
that DeShaun Watson was was properly aware, once he got
sued the first time that he should stop getting massage,
therapist via Instagram. And there aren't any one. There
isn't anyone else? Who could sue after the middle?
Arch. But
this is just all points to. We don't know how bad this is
going to get. We don't know how many plaintiffs are going to
be. We don't know what other stories are going to be out
there where else is going to come out of the woodwork
with claims
the best approach. And I and there were people in the league
office before all this started in the past few weeks, Shireen
who firmly believed that the shawl Watson should not play,
until these cases are resolved. That's a very real threshold
issue for the NFL as it decides what to do. Do paid leave or
unpaid suspension.
And I think the NFL, even though the commissioner said
that it won't be paid leave,
I think that as of right now,
they're still having that debate.
Yeah. Mike in this may not get resolved their investigation
before the season starts. Oh, you know, the Browns want to
know before training camp
but the NFL if they came back and didn't put him on
the commissioner exempt list, let's say until right before
the season started would really mess up the Browns and their
plans.
Could you see that happening? Could you see him going through
training camp? And then the NFL, At that point right before
the season them saying,
all right, we're putting you on the commissioner exempt list.
Now, until these cases are resolved or do they have to do
it in your mind before the training camp even starts?
Well,
I'd like to think they pick a lane before training, camp
starts for the for the benefit of everyone.
So we all know what's going on because
this whole thing is about managing PR
and if we get to the start of training camp and they haven't
done anything at all. Tall
and they wait until the literal last minute to put him on paid
leave.
When week, one rolls around that will mushroom into even
more of a distraction and even more of an issue. I think
the time to make a decision is upon us,
the time to implement it at the latest is the start of training
camp. And if it's going to be unpaid leave, it's going to
take time because it's a three-step process won
the league proposes, a suspension
and the union is bracing for an unprecedented.
From the league then judge Sewall Robinson, retired
federal judge from Delaware
who has been hired by the league and the union to serve
in this capacity as disciplinary officer, a new
facet of the personal conduct policy as of 2020. First big
test for it. She takes over,
has he hearing makes a decision
and then unless she finds no discipline at all
the commissioner steps in with full.
Discretion
on appeal, including saying to judge Robinson, thank you for
your service
but I'm going to go with what the league
proposed at the outset
and and I think what'll happen is because there's going to be
a political aspect to it. There's going to be a PR aspect
to what is a PR told the league starts. Hi
Judge Robinson, goes lower
the right then Roger Goodell
strikes, a middle ground. So I think that that's one of
the reasons why I believe the union is bracing for an unprecedented
recommendation
because you want to start high
and then you've got room to do something more reasonable
when it's finally done
and it represents a middle ground between whatever
the league wanted and whatever judge Robinson imposes. But
the one thing that the league is not going to do is put itself
in a position to be accused
of not being aggressive enough. Not after Ray Rice,
nearly resulted in the commissioner losing his job. So
that may be a way to navigate this new system. You do some,
you know, one year or more. This is what we want. What we
ultimately get is going to be different, but
at least we get that.
Lines the news cycle NFL's,
dick is just like Trevor Bauer, two years
for Major League Baseball. Well, he's got appeal rights
but we talked about two years, two years, two years, what he
eventually gets is going to be different potentially, but
that, that's part of what the NFL has to take into account.
Shereen major recommended suspension.
That works out to something less than that through this process.
Yeah. And and that makes the most sense Mike. And in the one
thing I do know about this that this is messy and it's getting
Messier by the day, and as you said, it's a PR deal. But this
is messy for DeSean, it's messy for the
Browns, it's messy for the Texans, it's messy for the NFL.
And and other owners could be sucked into this thing as you
wrote about yesterday. So by the day, this is just not going
away. And in fact, it's getting worse and worse for the
Also, at some point there does become
a PR angle to this thing that we've got to stop the flow here
and I think the commissioner exempt list is the best way to
do that. Mike,
at a minimum three owners will be drawn into this fight
voluntarily or not. And obviously they don't want to be
in the middle of it but what the union is going to argue and
we reported this yesterday
if and when there is an unpaid suspension
that forces the union
under its Federal duty of fair representation to represent the
interested to Shaw Watson.
There's two things that the union can do
one
fight for him, under the argument that he didn't do it
and he shouldn't get any punishment
to the alternative argument. Even if you are compelled to
take action, the action must be in. Fair proportion to
the action that you took or didn't take
against owners. Because it's right there, in the personal
conduct policy, owners are held to a higher
standard. So to the extent that precedent
Matters and it may not matter to Roger, Goodell Roger Goodell
wants to do whatever he wants to do, and if it happens to
mesh with precedence, so be it.
He's going to make a decision based upon
these facts and whatever he needs to do right now. Judge
Robinson, may say, okay. Well you make a good point
and I felt Players Association
and what that means is for example,
Dan Snyder.
Whatever the NFL decided based upon whatever facts they've
kept hidden,
all of a sudden, you're going to have a request, the judge
Robinson required to make available to the nflpa all
the findings from Beth Wilkinson,
what she would have. Recommended if they had
bothered to ask her to put her recommendation in writing or
ask for a verbal recommendation, which would
have been forced this guy to sell the team.
So that's a fair way to make
an apples-to-apples comparison. What did you do to her?
Owner where the bar is supposedly higher.
And what are you going to do to DeShaun Watson in this specific
set of circumstances? He's facing Robert Kraft, he had the
solicitation arrest in Florida now, ultimately charges
dismissed. Because there was a finding that this law
enforcement exercise and video. Surveillance was a blatant
violation of the rights of anybody who went into that room
for a massage, including
many who went in for nothing, but a massage
That is something for which there was no discipline. That's
the closest Apples to Apples comparison. Although there was
never any claim
that Robert Kraft engage in any force or coercion. There were
never any lawsuits filed against him. It was a criminal
charge that went away because law enforcement overreached in
its effort to harvest evidence,
but still still owners are held to a higher standard.
He didn't do anything at all.
Do you investigate it to do anything? You just ignore it?
Jerry Jones Shireen,
It continues to confound me,
the voyeurism Scandal involving his right-hand man, Rich.
Dalrymple no investigation by the league,
none whatsoever a week. Or so, after the league said, we can't
let Washington investigate itself.
The league was fine with the Cowboys investigating
themselves and brushing it all under the rug in 2015,
that's going to be the other one. So, it's Snyder
craft and Jones.
They are going to be
the focal point.
Points of part of the DeShaun Watson defense
saying whatever you do to him,
needs to fairly reflect. What you didn't do
to these three guys, especially since your own policy says,
they're held to a higher standard than players.
It's the absolute best point they can make Mike. And it's
a valid point and these guys weren't held to a higher
standard. They were held to a far lower standard than Ben
Roethlisberger. Ezekiel, Elliott or
Deshaun Watson even is going to be hell to. So it's a great
point and it's the best point that they have. And I don't
know how this ends for the owners but
yeah, they didn't serve punishment. That was
well to what a player would have served under the same
circumstance. There's no question about that. So we can
just forget the the portion of they are held to a higher
standard because we all know that that just didn't happen in
these three cases
and it continued my habit of shamelessly plugging my book
Playmakers which Shireen used to have behind her, I don't
know what happened to it but it's not there. It's been
replaced by a baseball cap for khurana, I guess
the Astros have been on a good run or something or she
wouldn't have an out there but Whole section
focused on owners.
And one of the themes is are they really held to a higher
standard and
is the punishment that's imposed on them, ever
a fair reflection
of the punishment that gets imposed on players. Let me just
give you a quick example and I don't know that this will come
up in the DeShaun Watson case. But these are things to
consider
when you suspend an owner, when you suspend a player,
he loses all of his financial compensation, it's gone,
he loses. It used to spend
him six weeks, he loses six weeks of the only money he ever
makes in football. It's gone. And for most players,
that is the vast majority of what they make. There's some
off-field stuff, but it's not that much. You lose the bulk of
your income for six weeks, when Jim irsay got suspended, six
weeks
after he had a driving while impaired arrest.
Several years back,
he wasn't allowed to go to the games, he's still got his money,
he's still got his share
of the TV funds, he still got his ticket. Honey,
he didn't get suspended in the way that a player does. He
didn't have his major and primary financial compensation
choked off for six months,
so are six weeks. Excuse me. So
it really isn't Apples to Apples when they
when they punished when they don't. And Shireen,
look,
I like the approach of going after what the league did or
didn't do with Snyder craft and Jones, you could throw another
one on there too, who just so happens to be the guy who gave
DeShaun Watson Sin is 230 million dollar contract, Jimmy
Haslam. Yeah. For some reason,
was never scrutinized by the NFL
for being the guy at the top of the ladder
of an inherently corrupt organization that cheated customers
out of millions of dollars
and people went to jail
beneath him for some reason,
they never tried to make it stick to him.
So he was either
mr. Magoo and oblivious
to what was happening
in the company.
That allowed him to raise the money that enabled the purchase
of the den of the Cleveland Browns
or or he was a mastermind who somehow managed to skate
away without consequence, but I don't think the league. Did
anything ever even considered taking action against Jimmy
Haslam. And
here he is the guy who
now employs DeShaun Watson
Yeah, and it's a great Point Mike and there's probably other
owners out there who aren't coming to mind right away that
they could throw in there as well, but
it's a great point. They're going to make and it's
something that the NFL is going to have to answer for
eventually based on on the direction, the nflpa is going
to go and it's a good direction to go and I don't know how you
defend that.
If you're the NFL you did you, you can't.
The epigraph to The Godfather from Balzac behind. Every great
Fortune. There is a crime sometimes in front of every
great Fortune, there's a crime as well. And a lot of times
depending upon who's making the decisions, if it's somebody who
is paid
by the people who own those teams
things, get swept under the rug