The Cleveland Browns don’t make it very easy for their fans, do they?
Their most recent championship came in 1964, and they are one of four NFL teams to have never appeared in a Super Bowl. There were no Browns at all for three seasons in the 1990s, between the time then-owner Art Modell moved them to Baltimore and the NFL gave Cleveland a new team. They have won one playoff game since 1 January 1995.
“Being a Browns fan is usually not by choice,” says Robyn Lockner, who started the Cleveland Browns Women’s Group in January 2019. “We have endured it all as Browns fans.”
Now they have a new quarterback in Deshaun Watson, who on talent alone would be easy to get behind. But many believe cheering for him is far more complicated, even questionable. Watson was suspended last week for 11 games and fined $5m in a settlement with the NFL, which investigated sexual misconduct claims against him by more than two dozen women.
Grand juries in two counties in Texas, where Watson played for the Houston Texans, declined to file criminal charges. Watson has settled 23 of 24 civil lawsuits against him, which accused him of coercive and lewd sexual behavior during massage appointments. “I continue to stand on my innocence,” Watson said Thursday, which raises questions for some critics about the NFL’s assertion that he “has committed to doing the hard work on himself that is necessary for his return.”
So: Does Cleveland cheer for him – or even for the Browns? The Browns acquired Watson in March knowing about Watson’s alleged behavior, then handed him a five-year, back-loaded $230m guaranteed contract. Without question, he is a talented quarterback. But many are understandably wary of cheering for him.
“It’s very real that the Watson acquisition from the start polarized the fan base,” says Tony Grossi, the ESPN Cleveland reporter who has covered the Browns for nearly 40 years. “The fissure deepened as unsavory details of the Watson case came out.”
Fans canceled their season tickets. Many who don’t hold season tickets “are totally turned off by this,” Grossi said.
“I have loved this team,” one Browns fan, Kyle Marvin, told NBC’s Peter King recently, “but I will not be a Browns fan this year. It’s going to be hard for me to be a Browns fan again. I’ll watch the NFL on TV, but not the Browns.”
Watson’s new No 4 Browns’ jersey is not among the big sellers at NFLshop.com (though the No 6 Carolina Panthers’ jersey worn by Baker Mayfield, the quarterback whom the Browns traded after Watson was acquired, did make the top 10 in July.) No piece of Watson merchandise is among the top 100 sellers on rallyhouse.com’s Cleveland Browns page.
But the effects of Watson’s arrival in Cleveland go deeper. Donisha Green, the director of community engagement for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, says that calls to the center increased by 150% after Watson was signed. She says 2,000 new donors collectively pledged more than $100,000. Many donated $22, for the 22 women who originally accused Watson of sexual assault.
“You have the die-hard fans who want to rock with the Browns regardless of the situation, and they’re going to be able to move past the headlines,” Green says. “But there are a number of folks who thought this to be devastating. They were all Browns fans and had season passes, and they’ve given up their tickets and they’ve donated the cost to our organization. It really was triggering for them.”
Green grew up 130 miles away in Pittsburgh as a fan of the Steelers, making it hard for her to root for the Browns under any circumstances. But she says of her adopted city: “Cleveland is definitely a football town, rooted in very deep, deep, deep, deep tradition.”
She adds: “People will have short memories, unfortunately, especially if the Browns win, especially if Deshaun Watson is successful. [The Browns] have their PR strategy and they’re executing it. They kind of just want to get past it, and people will respond. But for people who are actual survivors or are family members who are victims of sexual assault, it will be a little bit deeper for them.”
The matter has been difficult for Robyn Lockner to resolve. A season-ticket holder for six years, she launched the Cleveland Browns Women’s Group on Facebook because there was not exactly an organization for “women die-hard fans.” There are now 6,300 members.
The group, reads the cover page, is “for WOMEN ONLY who love their Cleveland Browns....the good, the bad and the ugly years.....for those of us who have endured it all....for those of us tired of men acting like we don’t know anything about football....this group is for year-round Cleveland Browns football talk.”
Lockner says she did not like the acquisition of Watson at first “because of the baggage.” She knew he was a phenomenal football player, an upgrade over Mayfield, but, as she says, “in the beginning, it was like, ‘What are we doing? Why are we getting into all of this?’”
She decided to read as much as she could, including a deposition from a Houston detective. “I kept an open mind, and this just didn’t add up,” she says. “It wasn’t making any sense.” She says that two or three of the women who made allegations against the quarterback were believable, but Watson generally was “not getting a fair shake here. They just wanted money.”
So far, Watson has not come up with a public explanation for why, according to the New York Times, he sought treatment from 66 massage therapists in 18 months (mostly on social media) when his team had full-time staff to treat him.
Lockner understands why some women left the group (although, perhaps buoyed by news coverage of the controversy, about the same number of women have since joined the group). She encouraged members to read the depositions and make up their own minds, and, as she says, “You’re either onboard, or you’re not.”
“Everybody’s sick of it,” she says of the matter. “We have a decision, and we are just ready to move on.”
For at least 11 games, the Browns will be able to do that. Had Watson played a full season, Grossi thought the team could win 11 games and qualify for the playoffs. Had Watson been suspended for a full season, he thought the Browns would win only eight or nine games. As it stands, the over-under among most bookmakers for Browns’ victories this season is 8.5.
“The only way the talk about his conduct goes away is for him to get back on the field and play like a franchise quarterback,” Grossi says. “That’s why I always have said he has to do whatever takes – take whatever medicine the league offers – to get back on the field as soon as possible.”
That is scheduled to happen on 4 December when the Browns play in, of all places, Houston, the metropolitan area where Watson’s misconduct occurred. The game will be a national circus. If his one preseason appearance for the Browns, at the Jacksonville Jaguars, is anything to go by, Watson will be subject to plenty of hostility. In Florida, fans chanted “no means no” and “you sick fuck” at the 26-year-old. But the Browns knew what they were doing when they decided to take on Watson and all his baggage.
The Cleveland Rape Crisis Center will continue to monitor incoming calls and donations because, as Green says, “We do recognize that this is not just a local story, but a national story.”
