DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum watson-suspended-6-games 2

College football may not be the answer either.

I think the Browns thought Watson would just get a slap on the wrist and only get a minimal suspension. They probably thought getting a QB like Watson was worth it and would make the Browns instant SB contenders.

Now, who knows if Watson will ever play a down for the Browns in a regular season game. If he does, may not be until next year.

I'm guessing that the white folks for the Texans are not going to be punished at all in their role to hurt women?

The NFL is an evil institution.

I beg the differ on Watson playing. At a minimum, he has already been suspended for 6-games. You can count on the Commissioner placing Watson on the Exempt list if a federal suit is filed.

Players who are placed by the Commissioner on the Exempt list prior to the determination of discipline and any appeal therefrom under the Personal Conduct Policy will be paid while on the Commissioner Exempt list and credited for the regular and post-season games missed against any suspension ultimately imposed. Notwithstanding any other provision in this Agreement, if such a suspension is ultimately imposed, the player must promptly return and shall have no further right to any salary for the games for which he was paid while on the Commissioner Exempt list that were credited to the suspension (i.e., for a number of games no greater than the length of the suspension).

Secondly, the question will be posed to as what the NFLPA is going to sue for. They are certain losers if they try to sue the process because they negotiated and agreed to the process with the approval of the CBA. What can the NFLPA sue for that's not spelled out within the agreed upon CBA?

More importantly is the effect this will have on Watson. Keep in mind that according to the negotiated CBA, the evidence that Judge Robinson used is determining her punishment is binding and cannot be challenged. If the NFL calls Watson as a witness in their defense against a NFLPA lawsuit, Watson will have to admit under oath that he committed the egregious acts that Judge Robinson uncovered or face perjury charges. Once he does admit guilt, the State of Texas would have proof of Watson's criminal acts. I don't believe that the NFL wants its dirty laundry published but the suit will cause Watson much more harm than the NFL because unlike the initial hearing, this would actually be in a court of law where his false testimony would carry legal ramifications.

Then there's the Buzbee press conference scheduled today. I hate to think what this might contain but you can bet that it won't be a positive spin for Watson. Could there be more suits coming, new evidence, or something against the Browns? I'm very leery of this press conference and the timing of it.

Whaetever the suspension. The Browns now have a franchise QB. It just might take longer than expected to have him under center. I thought Watson was treated fair by the judge. I disagree with the NFL's decision. But in the end he needs to serve his punishment, learn from his mistakes, and be a better person long term. The team will grow around Jacoby and I have faith we'll win some games. Hopefully, enough to get to the playoffs. Next man up for now!

So we know the NFLPA is going to sue. It won't be over the procedure laid out in the CBA...because that is essentially solid. So they will probably sue under discrimination, hostile workplace (ok that is kind of ironic)...anything else I am missing 05 and peen...would love your thoughts....

I don't agree with this - Sue Robinson handed down a suspension based on the framework of the NFL's policies. She is not in a position to decide the policies are bad and she will ignore them. I think that if she felt the suspension did not fit the actions she believed Watson to be guilty of - she could/would write a ruling that spells out how egregious the issues were, and state that she was confined to a maximum suspension as dictated by the NFL.... and that's what she did.

It's interesting - as the dust settles - I don't think I saw or heard many on this board rail against the 6 game suspension. I didn't see posts calling for a longer suspension. I know I didn't. I took it at face value and accepted it while focusing on what Sue Robinson stated about Watson who is the face of the Browns now. Maybe I need to go back and re-read the initial reactions - but to me, the claim that posters were clamoring for a longer suspension after the announcement don't ring true for many of the people who have been questioning the Brown's decision to go after a guy with 26 allegations of sexual misconduct/assault hanging over him.

Do we know they are suing for sure? I haven't seen an announcement.

Vers, the racial overtones doesn't serve anyone on this forum. As far as the Texans, again, if Watson is innocent as you continue to preach then the Texans cannot be guilty of anything. However, if they are guilty like you assume then Watson must be guilty too.

I agree that the Texans appear to have some guilt in this whole process, and I don't know if the NFL is investigating them or not since it took already more than a year and a half to start to get closure on Watson.

Outside of that, I find it interesting that you have blamed the women, the Texans, Buzbee, the NFL, Judge Robinson, society, white people, Goodell, NFL owners, and concerned Browns fans in a constant barrage yet not once have I heard you say that Watson needs to take responsibility for the actions, he and only he decided was ok in the treatment of the women. Nobody is responsible for the mess that overloads this forum on a daily basis except for one person - Watson. Nobody but nobody is responsible for the interactions of Watson and more than 66 women via Instagram than Watson. You can blame whomever you want to ease your own personal feelings, but you can't hide the fact the the single denominator in every single effort of blame still is Watson. He and he alone created this mess and he and he alone was the egregious contributor.

I took a little liberty on that...no, we don't know for sure...but it is an assumption based in a strong foundation...

I don't know what will happen and if the NFLPA will challenge. As you said - any ruling on Watson by Goodell will be in keeping with the contract and policies of the NFL and NFLPA. However, you do bring up a good point - how does a court of law view and interpret/treat a 'guilty' verdict by Sue Robinson. Since the process wasn't conducted within and to the same legal system as a court of law, I am not so sure that the verdict would be as cut and dry within our legal system as you suggested. Maybe someone else can verify - but I think it's probably doubtful that there is precedent for a guilty verdict in a Civil Trial to be used as the momentum/trigger to go forward with a criminal trial?

Can't say I'm surprised by the action taken by the NFL... From the moment of the announcement of a 6 game suspension, I felt it was a NO WIN for the NFL and Goodell. No matter which way it went, he was going to be looked at like a fool and so is the NFL..

But from my standpoint, the NFL and the NFLPA put together a plan for such situation. They should have just stuck with it and left it at 6 games. JMHO however.


OH well, back to the drawing board I guess

This is an excellent post and can apply to anyone trying to absolve or deflect blame away from Watson.

My understanding from reading something somewhere (yeah, I know that's not helpful) is that the NFL was going to leave the Texans alone.

When someone says justice wasn't served, does that count?

The 6 game long suspension from judge S.L. Robinson was a joke and a insult to all sexually abused women out there and that’s why the NFL had to appeal. What else could they do?

With a 15 page long document in front them of where the judge hammering Watson to the ground the commissioner was left with no other alternatives if he want to walk out of this without looking like a misplaced old out of touch dinosaur. The document also raise serious questions about the Browns so called investigation. To use words like “we’re comfortable with what we know” is almost insulting against us Cleveland Browns supporters who thought we had a professional and honest leadership in our organization. The charades they delivered at that infamous press conference in late Mars seems almost comical when reading theses documents.

I mean WTF!! Incompetence doesn’t even cover how bad this is handled.

^ Here is another one.

So, you are shouting down my opinions? Furthermore, I have never once said Watson was innocent. Please stop telling lies.

Robinson was in cohoots with the NFL as recently as a month ago. Just read an article by Charles Robinson that she announced the suspension would not be what the NFL wanted a month ago to the hearing participants thereby allowing Watson to stand his ground and the NFL to start preparing for the appeal. She then wrote her ruling in a way that would help the NFL appeal.

Best I could tell was she felt some judicial duty on the sentence but not in aiding the NFL to overturn it.

What a messed up process.

RDW is lucky Robinson wasn't ruling on criminal prosecution. She would have thrown the book at him. It was plain to see she formed a very low opinion of him during this.

It was not a joke. I think you're letting your emotions overwhelm your objectivity on this one. It's fine to say the punishment was not nearly harsh enough, but if you adopt that rationale, the logical nexus is that the NFL's own previous actions, policies, and punishments are at the crux of all this. Judge Robinson was very logical in her thought process. Try to focus on analyzing rather than reacting.

The NFL is appealing because of its own PR. It still looks awful, because now they are undermining their own appointed arbiter, and the NFLPA looks stupid too for agreeing to a useless provision. This will be a course of strain in the next round of negotiations.

If you ask me, what the NFL should have done after the ruling, rather than go reactionary itself, is to take Judge Robinson's advice to heart and renegotiate a codification of punishments with the NFLPA to avoid what clearly looks to be an arbitrary meting of punishments and an illogically varying pattern of precedence. It serves everyone better and also eases the process if there are "sentencing guidelines" like FATE alluded to previously.

The real problem is that Goodell, throughout his tenure, has wanted to do what he has wanted to do, and not done what he did not want to do. That's all well and good when you're running a disinterested dictatorship, but when you're trying to run a stable, PR-conscious sports league, it can bite you in the butt, like it currently is.

I'll also add the NFLPA and Watson's camp got owned by the NFL and Robinson. They should have anticipated that Robinson was in bed with the NFL, and they didn't. I think the ruling and the wording caught them completely off guard.

I don't think they have a leg to stand on in pursuing a lawsuit. Robinson saw to that and the CBA will take care of the rest.

Again, the Browns took a calculated risk and it didn't work out.

Flo, OCD and Pit might be the only ones I can think of that have rallied hard about the suspension? That's 3 posters. I someone could write "justice wasn't served" - and not clamour for a longer suspension. I think they could write those words and then rail against the suspension... it could go either way depending on the context of the post(s).

Nice post. I just want to focus on the part I quoted for a moment.

That was my initial reaction after I read Judge Robinson's ruling. I even said so in a post. The only difference is that I said they should do it when they were negotiating the terms of the next CBA. I think that it will take a lot of time and give and take between the league and the NFLPA to come up w/terms that both sides are comfortable with.

That's fair.

It’s my thinking that the Browns brass believed that when the grand jury(s) chose not to pursue criminal charges that he’d (take the obvious and almost certain advice from his counsel and) settle everything quickly and this whole thing was winding down, not building up. They probably thought there’d be a land rush and though only a handful of desperate teams were pursuing him out in the open they had it in their heads that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, others might enter the fray soon and so they went at it with the zeal that no other team that had real perspective or quality counsel ever should have.

Aaaaand then when they dropped on him the biggest contract in the universe and happily parted with the teams future for years to come they didn’t write in any accountability on Watson’s part. So he stupidly didn’t settle, which allowed Buzbee to do what lawyers like him always do in this kind of situation which was a master class in up-marketing. Make the stakes higher, the terms progressively more expensive and keep the pressure ratcheting ever upwards. It enters the blood stream of the non sports media and from there blossoms into a full-on proper cultural moment. Congratulations and enjoy your world class turd burger.

I know I’m a broken record on this but this was all very predictable. I don’t know who the ultimate decider was but this much I can tell from deduction: they do not have enough voices of reason or good scenario modelers around them. Nothing tells me this more than the fact they didn’t do like the Dolphins and write in the demand for immediate settlement prior to signing. The worse deduction is that they do have those voices and they ignore them. But These are the kinds of decisions usually made by people who are surrounded by yes-men. People that reinforce your appetites and more errant proclivities. If I’m the owner or GM and I stepped into a massive steaming pile of dog doo like this I’m looking around the table for who had the courage to warn me, to speak counter to my desires, who had the sobriety to point out the real risks. If there’s no one, then I have to stop everything and locate that voice and bring them in. It’s too late for this fiasco but moving forward you’ve got to grow up and out of this kind of unforced, self inflicted error. The Browns still have important decisions in front of them regarding how to handle all this but the biggest ones are long past them.

I might believe any other person in the organization is capable of this growth but I have zero faith that the Haslams will ever change. Any organization that has confirmed incompetence at the top will never be very successful in the long run. They’ll always find a ditch to drive into.

j/c:

I think the NFLPA's lawsuit against the NFL is going to emphasize this portion of Judge Robinson's report. It's on page 15---The Conclusion.




This is clearly about how the NFL has treated the owners when they have violated the Personal Conduct Policy.

Not bargaining in good faith might be challenged.

While it is written in the contract that Goodell could have the final say, I am not sure that totally dismissing what the arbitrator decided and the seemingly constant changes in the ground rules by the NFL would be in good faith.

The commissioner of the game is supposed to be a neutral party who represents the integrity of the game and doesn't take favor with ownership or players. I am not sure the commissioner has acted as a neutral party for some time.

When one thinks about the NFL, who exactly is the NFL? Roger Goodell is the first person who comes to mind. Not someone else in the NFL office.

Agreed - NFL as an organization dealing with player and owner issues is bereft of credibility and the way they have handled owner's issues has been 100% hypocritical in comparison to how they handle player issues. I don't think anyone could disagree.

You’re right. Joke is the wrong word. Maybe I should have used the punishment wasn’t hard enough to satisfied the public opinion.

Anyway when a judge write such a devastating document that totally destroys the credibility of Watson then she open up all floodgates and give NFL the ammunition to do whatever they want. These documents also paint the Browns as totally incompetent and without any ounce of integrity and backbone. The judge call him flat out for a lier. That’s knock out that totally erase Watson’s credibility and btw it’s unusual strong words when it comes from a ex judge. .

j/c...

Goodell trying to change the optics.

This would be my advice to Watson at this point:

Try to settle for as few games as possible, which means offer money/donations/rehab/etc in exchange for games (of course, he might care about his money more than playing in the games this year)

I think best case scenario: he gets a 10-12 game suspension, huge fine, and has to be in therapy

What makes you think she’s in bed with the NFL? Her ruling wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement of their actions either.

I was thinking about this angle as well. Is this the first ruling Robinson has issued? If so, that is another arrow in the quiver for a lawsuit.

I think that’s more fair, but I don’t think she opened the floodgates for the NFL. I think she was admonishing then for essentially being arbitrary, short-sighted, reactionary morons, but obviously in a much more professional way.

There are a lot of really bad takes still going on with the process, but you are correct. The Judge worked within the agreed framework. While the NFL is making a bad move now in appealing, in my opinion, that is still within the framework too.

Speaking for myself the 6 game suspension was fine because the process called for it. If the NFL wanted it to be longer then they should amend their policies so that it can be longer NEXT TIME. Watson gets the excuse of being the really bad case that gets off light because the rules were not made for a really bad case. The NFL appeal is still valid, it just looks bad to me. He committed acts that should penalize him 6 games.

I read that if he did some sort of intervention and paid a hefty fine the games didn't have to increase. Not sure how accurate that is.