DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Watson continued (new grand jury)

This should be a good time....

Smart to have Dee Haslam out front as well.

Welcome to Cleveland Watson, we're glad to have you here.

j/c...

Must not have felt like flying up from West Palm Beach! Not the best look.

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I almost wish I was a forensic accountant, so I could try to figure out how much money teams and the league spent investigating Watson and the cases. I'd bet the number is ridiculous.

Dee doesn't want to hang with Watson, I get that. Maybe somebody will ask Haslam if he would want his granddaughters around Watson.

Talk about a celebrity trial.

The Browns are not hiring football players to do anything but play football, and really well. Go Team.

Huh?

I find this really weird. Every other big signing since Haslam bought the team, he's been there whether it's a coach or player.

Odd. I wonder what it makes Watson think.

Sure, you could call them. Sometimes(many) you need to schedule a time with people. GM's aren't always sitting by the ready to take trade calls.

I don't know what you are looking for. Being in person or via zoom is still being available to questions.

Small potatoes

Odd! Too much going on to be a mere coincidence. I smell something major in the works (of course that is just the conspiracy theorist in me...lol).

Functionally I get what you are saying, but the optics of it looks pretty bad if you ask me.

Possibility of Commissioner exempt list still looms for Deshaun Watson

Posted by Mike Florio on March 22, 2022, 11:32 AM EDT 

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Many assume that Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson eventually will be suspended for the civil and criminal allegations that have been made against him. The number — 22 civil complaints and two additional criminal complaints who did not sue Watson — is large enough to be troubling on its face. Whatever the critical mass of complaints that will naturally cause concern, 24 is on the wrong side of it.

The league knows this. Some have concluded that the failure of the league to take action against Watson means that the league won’t, at least not until the 22 civil cases are resolved. That’s possibly a misreading of the situation.

The league hasn’t placed Watson on the Commissioner exempt list (a fancy label for paid leave) because it hasn’t had to. He didn’t try to play for the Texans in 2021. He wasn’t traded to a new team that would have tried to put him on the field. Now with the Browns, he won’t play until August at the earliest.

The league has made the Personal Conduct Policy more than broad enough to permit paid leave, even in the absence of criminal charges. “When an investigation leads the Commissioner to believe that a player may have violated this Policy by committing any of the conduct identified above,” the Policy explains, “he may act where the circumstances and evidence warrant doing so. This decision will not reflect a finding of guilt or innocence and will not be guided by the same legal standards and considerations that would apply in a criminal trial.

”The key words are “may have violated.” With 24 people accusing Watson of sexual misconduct during massage therapy sessions and Watson’s lawyer admitting that some massage therapy sessions did indeed become voluntary sexual encounters, there’s enough for the Commissioner to conclude that Watson “may have violated” the Personal Conduct Policy.

Remember, Ben Roethlisberger was suspended six games (reduced to four) in 2010 for two sexual misconduct allegations, neither of which resulted in criminal charges. In 2017, Ezekiel Elliott was suspended six games for domestic violence allegations that ended in neither criminal nor civil claims. The league can, and will, do whatever it chooses — and the decisions quite often will be driven not by notions of fairness and justice but by balancing the P.R. consequences of taking action and not taking action.

On Monday, I suggested that the league should tell Watson that he can either settle the cases and take an unpaid suspension to start the season or keep fighting the cases and be placed on paid leave until they are resolved. I now believe the league won’t do that. The league won’t do that because the league doesn’t do that. It doesn’t telegraph its plans or tip its hand.

The league has learned to keep its head low and its mouth shut in these matters, or as long as it can. The league will act when the time comes to act. And I’m currently confident that, if 22 civil cases remain pending against Watson when it’s time to play games, Watson won’t be playing in those games.

The league won’t tell Watson or the Browns that. The league will expect Watson and the Browns to figure it out on their own. And the league will shed no tears and make no apologies if/when they decide to place Watson on paid leave, if Watson fails to get the cases settled before football season rolls around.

Which are you talking about? Are you talking about the legal side (the decision that they should/could prosecute)? If so, then yes 2 GJs choosing no is significant.

But IMO, the bigger issue (that I'm wrestling with) is the 'Watson is a creep' issue. IMO, another GJ declining doesn't lessen how much I think Watson is a creep, the fact that SOMETHING more than likely happened in the 22 instances we're talking about. I'm speaking more to Watson and his actions and trying to cut out the legal wrangling/shenanigans.

IMO, we still are no closer to knowing what he actually did/didn't do. So (for me) the wait continues.

I guess so...I don't know what could be in the works.

My guess if the PC is two fold. If the Haslams were there, most of the questions would be about the Why's of the hire.

With Watson, Berry and Coach, it can easily be direct to the football end of things. Questions about the legal stuff can be directed towards the Haslams at the 2nd PC. If the Haslams were in the building, the natural question would why aren't they here now?

No doubt in the world of business this would fall under crisis communications and people are well versed on the best way to control things. I understand some people don't understand and think it BS, but too bad.

This way one PC's will deal with one end of the matter and the other will deal with the other end. If some you actually stop and think about it, you will probably come to see this is the best way go.

The 1st rule of giving a press conference is to be in control of the press conference.

As someone said, 22 is pertinent, but not conclusive. You're conflating the 2, and then ignoring the rest of the evidence (this just what we know, after all).

Who knows... you could be 100% right. I don't know, but neither do you. For me, I choose to try to not jump to conclusions, and it's irritating when someone spams the entire board pretending they know everything.

1. GJs failing to charge and settling civil cases is NOT innocent.

therefore

2. NFL is on its own program. They are under no obligation to take direction from the results from the legal process (under their personal conduct policy).

The NFL won't wait until the Civil Suits are finished.
The Civil Cases could, and probably will, take years to resolve.
The Plaintiff's Lawyer gets paid if and when a judgement is decided. This AFTER Appeals, etc....
Watson's Lawyers get paid, Period, by the hour. So obviously they want a long case.
After the NFL makes their ruling that will be appealed.

j/c...

I was really just wondering if it "changed the math" for those focused on the number 22.

Is he a creep or is he just a promiscuous, rich, young athlete? Obviously, he's not entirely puritanical when it comes to sex, but, if both parties went into it willingly, how he chooses to get freaky isn't football relevant. He's definitely not the first, and won't be the last, player to have multiple casual partners. I'd like to think I'd be more selective and discreet if I were in his position, but if attractive masseuses were offering extra services I can't be sure I'd always say no in the moment. In my early 20s, my resolve being overridden by hormones would only have been more likely. It's easy to say pick one and settle down, but he's young and the average age of men getting married in the US is 30.4 according to the census bureau. link Throw in the fact that his significant other is a musician, so there could be a touring schedule. Busy, traveling professionals could have decided that an open relationship with "only physical" one night stands was preferred to emotional cheating which could have contributed to the numbers. I don't pretend to know the lifestyles of the rich and the famous.

Hopefully that's all this was and he learns from it.

I agree that the wait continues, and we could never actually know. The truth could be stranger than fiction/my "hopeful" speculation.

Is that a raccoon skin hat or Newsome's hair?

"Your search for '22 women PitDAWG' returned 200 results."

He's toppled the algorithm, search results page only shows the first two hundred results.


That's enough spam to feed the what's left of the Russian military.

If the accusers' lawyer is half the goofball people say he is, I think we'll find out plenty in due time.

(IMO and FWIW)

It's the George Costanza hat.

Spam has an unfair bad rep. You can make a terrific breakfast sangy with a slice of fried spam, an over-easy egg, and a toasted English muffin. I am just sayin'.

I was trying to find the demographics for the polls of the election he lost not too long ago. I was hoping to find a gender breakdown. If he had had a poor showing amongst female voters, a high profile sexual assault case could have been taken in an attempt to change how he's viewed by that demographic. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any info on the gubernatorial* race broken down by gender.

I don't know about goofball, but he wants to be a "goober."

* actually I think it was mayoral, but governor could be a logical progression.

Owners meetings are going on this week in West Palm Beach, they aren't on vacation. Although I'm sure these events have plenty of free time or lavish parties/gatherings.

Just a couple of thoughts;

I watched the Rich Eisen video and I think he brought up a good question, who uses 22 different masseuses (and there may be more)? Most people use 2 or 3 then stick with one they like so why did Watson constantly hire different ones?

Also Watson wasn't/isn't likely to be indicted by a Grand Jury, from what I have read and heard it doesn't seem that he physically forced himself on these women he just threatened their jobs and such and most Grand Juries aren't going to indict someone if it's a he said/she said thing. Unless these women have a witness or a recording of Watson threatening them it's not likely to happen.

A guy that uses that many isn't really interested in the massage itself. A guy that seems to prefer non-licensed (or sorta-licensed or whatever), and seems to prefer to find therapists via social media vs the team or teammates is not interested in the massage itself. To me, it's obvious he's a creep. But the question in my mind is does his creepiness rise to the level of me (and others) not wanting him to be on our team. Some want to make it seem like he was simply paying for sex. Others want to make it seem that he committed rape and/or sex assault. Not even trying to get into the legal side of things, there's a grey area between the two sides where the truth actually falls. Obviously, the FO established a line and determined that he was on the side closer to the former interpretation.

Good post.

As to the last line, regardless of where the FO feels his responsibility lies, I hope they (and he) haven't left the elephant in the room.

He has an addiction. It's not just 22 women, it's over 50, you can be relatively sure he tried to have sex with all of them. While I get it as far as young men and their "conquests" go, this is pretty extreme. Especially considering there was backlash and "word on the street" along the way.

I sincerely hope our inquest wasn't met with "I didn't do anything wrong, it was consensual"... the issue is much deeper than that.

While there's no denying his talent on the field, "Deshaun the person" has a long road in front of himself before we can say he's a great person. Humans soften up quite a bit when someone admits they have a problem. Sadly, that won't be stated in the short term because of ongoing legal issues.

This is a make-or-break move. Sports fans and media are pretty short in the patience department. We'll need to see immediate results on the field or the mud-slinging may be exacerbated by everything going on off the field.

Not necessarily with the group of hacks that is the Cleveland sports writers. Most of them should report for TMZ with as much drama as they write about as opposed to the actual on field results. LOL

Is he really a creep? I'd say most guys like a pretty woman giving them a rub down.

I am not really sticking up for the guy as much as to say I wouldn't say it's creepy. For that matter, why is it not a bit "creepy" to rub down strangers?

Would you rub down a stranger? LOL...OK, not fair, not trying to put you on the spot...I am just saying to illustrate the point a bit.

j/c...

Press conference started.

Sure... if you ignore the fact that "rubbing down a stranger" is actually a legit profession (massage therapists are an integral part to NFL athletes keeping their bodies in performance shape). Do you know what a sports massage is?

j/c...