Don’t try to fool us with spin, and don’t insult us by talking about “due diligence.” Some NFL team is going to trade a bunch of assets for Deshaun Watson, a Pro Bowl quarterback who has been accused of sexual misconduct in lawsuits filed by 22 women, for one simple reason: It wants a Pro Bowl quarterback so desperately that it doesn’t care he was accused of sexual misconduct by 22 women. This is the way of pro sports. People who wouldn’t trust Watson alone in a room with a loved one are eager to have him on the field.
Watson can help people win a Super Bowl, or at least win enough games to stay employed. Through his lawyer, he has denied any wrongdoing and asserted that the 22 women who accused him of sexual misconduct are lying. And a grand jury declined to indict him on criminal charges (more on that later). But there is one overriding fact you should always remember about a man who has been accused of sexual misconduct by 22 women, which is that he has been accused of sexual misconduct by 22 women. The conversation about Deshaun Watson’s “character” should start there and never stray very far.
So, to the Atlanta Falcons: If you trade for Watson, don’t sell us any garbage about how you got to know him when he was your ball boy. You know, as though a ball boy could never go on to commit sexual misconduct. To the Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints: Not a word about “due diligence,” O.K.? You need a quarterback and Watson is a great one. If you cared about his character, you would Google him, and then you’d have to grapple with those accusations of sexual misconduct by 22 women.
