Editors’ note: This story contains accounts of sexual assault. If you or someone you know is a survivor of sexual assault, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at or at https://www.rainn.org
Browns guard Joel Bitonio was widely criticized earlier this month after the team’s new quarterback, Deshaun Watson, was booed on the field while the team was in Jacksonville. When addressing the boos and expletives heard that day, Bitonio said, “It seems like more than ever, [it’s] Cleveland against the world, so be ready for it.”
Bitonio was criticized for using the controversy over Watson’s playing in the NFL as a battle cry for Cleveland. He addressed it all Wednesday.
“Yeah, I noticed it,” he said. “I noticed, and what I said was, we’re going to go to stadiums and we’re going to get booed by people no matter who’s playing quarterback for us and as a team we come out and say, you know, ‘Cleveland against the world.’
“If people want to take that in the wrong context or talk about it in the wrong context, that’s their opinion but I know we have good people on this team that are working hard and trying to be the best for the Cleveland Browns and that’s where I am at and as a player who has been here for nine years, and if someone wants to think that I don’t love and appreciate things in my life, that’s their opinion,” he continued. “But I know where I’m at and where I’m at with Cleveland and the people on this team.”
On Aug. 18, the NFL and the NFLPA reached a settlement on the punishment for Watson. He’ll be suspended for the first 11 games of the upcoming season. The suspension follows a league investigation after more than two dozen women detailed graphic accounts of sexual harassment and assault by Watson during massage therapy sessions. The accounts range from Watson refusing to cover his genitals to the quarterback “touching [a plaintiff] with his penis and trying to force her to perform oral sex on him.”
Beginning in March 2021, 25 women filed lawsuits against Watson. One plaintiff dropped her case due to privacy concerns, but the other two dozen remained active until June ’22, when 20 settlements were reached. Watson reportedly settled three of the remaining four lawsuits ahead of an Aug. 1 ruling by Sue L. Robinson, a disciplinary officer appointed by the NFL and players union, who ruled Watson should be suspended for six games. That decision was appealed by the NFL.
Watson has denied wrongdoing, and two Texas grand juries declined to indict him on criminal charges this spring. He publicly apologized—without admitting to any specific offenses—for the first time ahead of Cleveland’s preseason game at Jacksonville. He signed a fully guaranteed five-year deal worth $230 million in March with the Browns.
