I forget when you wrote it a week or so ago is
maybe the most sensible thing for the league
and this independent referee. In this case, The Independent
adjudicator in this case,
former federal judge Sewall Robinson in Delaware.
Maybe the best thing to do quite honestly
is to split the baby.
And to say, look we know you're getting suspended for some
number of games.
We just don't have finality
on the civil cases right now.
So we're going to suspend you for four games this year
and we're going to hold it in abeyance
and make a further judgment
on how much if any more we will suspend you
in 23 or 24
and what you said a minute ago, that is Don't want to even say
frightening to consider
but
I am borderline positive
that Jimmy Haslam D. Haslem
Andrew Barry. Kevin stefanski when they sat down and thought
of worst-case scenarios.
They must have thought. Okay. Well, you know at the absolute
latest a year from now, we'll be finishing with this case,
sometime in the 2023.
Three offseason, you know, April or May
maybe June this will end and then we will have our
quarterback
in full for the last four years of this contract.
Okay, and now what you just said before,
When you said that this is going to last all of this here,
all of next year and into 2024, unless there is a global
settlement
in the settlement, in these 23 cases,
how frightening must that be
to a team that now has to decide.
Can you imagine making this decision
at the end of this season
after you finish 89,
or, and again, I
Do we have to do better than Jacoby percent
as a backup quarterback
because now we're not sure at all. What's going to happen
next year. I mean
this, this is such a quagmire
for the Cleveland Browns
and you know, beyond DeShaun Watson
and and and Mike. You have also said this and I think you're
right. He needs somebody to Sean, Watson need somebody to
basically tell. Tell him the truth.
You need somebody close to him to say, Hey, listen,
you know, you've got to do everything in your power right
now to admit some fall to do whatever
to fall on, whatever sword,
you know, to stop saying, I've never disrespected a woman or
whatever his quote was about it. You got to get real
because there's a world out there that doesn't believe you
and there's a lot of evidence to suggest why the Al doesn't
believe you. So I
I mean, I don't even know the point of what I'm saying. Other
than to say no, you're absolutely right. You're
absolutely right. Because yeah, it was a point. I was going to
make
Yeah.
Yeah. Well DeShaun Watson needs somebody to tell them the truth
and the Cleveland Browns are in for
a 24-month nightmare from today.
I think it's fair to say
I think I've said this before in the context of this case
one of the biggest challenges when you practice law in
a litigation setting is to
separate what you say in court or how you. Ducked. The actual
effort to defend or push the rights of your client
separate that from what you say, to your client back in
the confines of your office, or your conference room, where you
have the tough talk, with your client about the weaknesses of
the case, because the client gets caught up
the client loves it.
The client loves having someone fight for them
and they hear everything you say in court
and they get all excited and they get
Hardened in their position. That's when you got to take
them back and say hang on there Jimmy.
I was doing what I had to do there. Now's where we have
the conversation about why we need to think about settling
the case and where you may have some responsibility here and
why it may not be as good as I was trying to paint it as
because that's where I am your Advocate.
Now. I'm not your Advocate. I am your friend. I am your
advisor. I am your counselor. I am telling you what needs to be
done and Peter.
Either DeShaun Watson hasn't gotten
that kind of tough love.
Very blunt advice
or he's gotten it and he's consistently, ignoring it
because he's 26 years old.
I know what I would say to DeShaun Watson, if I had had
the opportunity
to sit down with him in a room
for a half hour to an hour.
I know exactly what I would say.
I know what questions I would ask and I know what points
I would make in the bottom line is this if You are going to go
from person to person to person to person to get massages, and
you're going to admit that at least
three of those massages became sexual encounters
post-massage. You have to understand how that looks,
especially when 23, women are now saying
you went too far,
you did. And and there's no one there
to vouch for you.
And if this is true and there's always little nuggets, you can
point. To there was one allegation that it really
doesn't. It seemed important in the latest lawsuit, but it's
critical the woman who sued him. This week
said that he specifically wanted no one else in the room.
Okay, that's one thing that I would, I would grab onto that
with DeShaun Watson. And I would say, du-shaunt, is this
true? Just tell me right now,
but you and me in the room. Is it true
that you said to her
just the two of you? Well. Yeah, it is. Okay.
Okay. Look, you gotta understand
it's over at that point. You've created a situation where Two
versions of what happened in that room because there's not
a third person there to break the tie.
So we got to accept what she's saying.
We got to understand what she's saying. We have to realize
we're going to go to court and she's going to say it,
we may disagree, but she's gonna say it
and this isn't going away
until she gets her chance to get her day in court and say
it. And that's why
we need to resolve this case right now for a fair amount.
And that's why. And you can do it. I'd work through every case
with him
why we need to resolve.
These cases and also the other side of a, to the point, you
mentioned the Browns. Now, look, the organization is
getting what it deserves here.
The fans don't deserve this. The fans get mad at me for
saying these things. Hey, I'm your advocate here. You don't
deserve to have this Dark Cloud hanging over your team
for two or maybe three seasons
all because the Browns had to have DeShaun Watson, and
DeShaun Watson has to have his 23 days in court.
This is not a burden that the Browns,
And should have to carry, and they're the ones that I feel
bad about in all of this other than whatever it is that
happened and wherever Justice transpires with the 23
individuals. Obviously, I feel bad for them if their claims
are accurate and truthful.
And I'm not saying they aren't, I'm just saying hey, we need to
be fair and balanced here. But the Browns fans, they're just
minding their own business. Trying to get
themselves thinking, their team's going to be any good and
now they've got to carry this around. Indefinitely this
notion that their quarterback
may or may not have done these horrible things. And may or may
not be available to play football.
You know, the one thing that you've talked about in recent
weeks and that has come up a lot.
Stephanie abstain of Sports Illustrated has raised this issue
and I think wisely
does the NFL
even in a tangential matter
have to consider what major league baseball did with Trevor
Bauer
and a lot of people would say, well, whoa. Whoa. Whoa, what
Trevor Bauer did.
How do you know, goes into the violent realm,
you know, according to the charges?
So,
no one claims with DeShaun Watson that you know, that he
that he injured physically injured. Anybody mentally is
another matter,
but be that as it may,
where do you come down on that? Mike?
Well, I think it's highly relevant because this is all driven by
public opinion. The personal conduct policy is a PR tool,
98% of the Employers in the country, don't care because
it's not their business. What happens between an employee
and the criminal or Civil Justice System. As long as you
can show up at work. Now, there are exceptions to that and
there are employers who want to hold against an employee. Some
issue. They got
into away from work. And I've had to counsel employers, you
can't worry about that. That's not Your business, it has
nothing to do with why you employ the person,
but the NFL has made it
part of the employment relationship. The nflpa has
allowed it because the public is asked to embrace this
product, to pay money to this product. So,
if there's a person who has done something that the public
regards is vile, the NFL needs to have a mechanism for dealing
with it. So, so yes, it is relevant and what
the expectations of the public are
and how people react to Trevor Bauer.
Our and whether or not that's viewed as excessive or not,
excessive that all goes into the stew that's going to
determine what Roger Goodell thinks the right punishment is
and the one big similarity between Bauer and W and even
though the facts are different and the bower facts are very
graphic and disturbing
the one similarity, Peter is consent
and the extent to which consent was
violated by the man involved
in Watson's case. It was in the context of a massage,
how Much consent was there to activity and was it, was it
violated? And with Trevor Bauer?
It was a different context where there were consensual
sexual activities.
How much consent to whatever kind of rough actions happened
was provided and whether to what extent it was violated, so
I think Trevor Bauer is highly relevant to this and the fact
that
Rusty Harden
would argue. It has no relevance whatsoever tells me,
he's afraid, it has relevance because it points to a year at
a minimum for Deshaun Watson. If the NFL takes the Trevor
Bauer case, seriously.