Maybe this is how it goes after so many years of getting kicked around and picked on. If you’re a laughingstock loser for long enough, you start thinking like the teams that have long bullied you around. You lose your pluck and your grit and you turn a little bit colder because that’s what everyone else does, right? You convince yourself that winning is all that matters to everyone else, too, making all decisions in shameless pursuit of wins feel defensible.
Right?
You trash your own people, smear them on the way out and try to trade them with some anonymous middle finger about childish behavior. You trade for a quarterback who was accused by 22 women of sexual harrassment and assault and pretend that a criminal nonindictment from a grand jury is the same thing as an exoneration. You reward that same player who acted like the entire thing was just an inconvenience for him. How about we ask some of the people impacted by his behavior how it feels to carry pepper spray to work now or choose outfits meant to deter unwanted sexual contact? (Sports Illustrated’s independent reporting uncovered corroborating evidence for one plaintiff’s account, and another woman who isn’t suing shared the details of her massage therapy session with Deshaun Watson as a way of publicly supporting the plaintiffs.)
