It needed to occur in some unspecified time in the future throughout final evening’s recreation.
There is not any method that the Cleveland Browns can play in a nationally-televised recreation with out Deshaun Watson’s sexual assault allegations being mentioned. Even although Monday Night Football is just not a information program, it might have been irresponsible for ESPN to air the Browns, their followers, and even Brownie the Elf, with out addressing the workforce’s — at greatest — morally questionable resolution to commerce for Watson.
The Browns have been comfortably forward 25-6, with slightly below 10 and half minutes remaining within the fourth quarter, when the manufacturing workforce determined this was the proper time for Joe Buck to toss it to Lisa Salters to debate Watson’s return to the Browns.
A graphic confirmed an especially condensed timeline of the outcomes of what has occurred with Watson’s taking part in standing since he didn’t take the sector final season. Salters defined that Watson is allowed again within the Browns’ facility however not allowed to affix his teammates on the follow area. Also he’s on observe to play Week 13.
Buck then jumped again in and mentioned that Watson has been accused of sexual misconduct throughout therapeutic massage classes, and 23 out of the 26 lawsuits towards him have been settled out of court docket earlier than posing the query to Troy Aikman, “What is [Watson] gonna look like coming back from basically two years out of the game?”
Aikman talked for about six seconds earlier than a 53-yard bomb from Jacoby Brissett to Amari Cooper ended all discuss Watson for the night.
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Hopefully, that moment is not a harbinger of what the media coverage around Watson will look like once he likely returns to the field on Dec. 4, against his former team — the Houston Texans — in the town where much of his alleged misconduct took place. Watson continues to deny any wrongdoing. A big play, maybe a few, had better not end the conversation about Watson’s conduct.
Watson is not incarcerated, so once he serves the punishment that the league levied on him, there is no further reason to keep him off of the field. That being said, what has been alleged, as well as the cases in which the NFL’s investigation concluded that Watson was in the wrong, should not merely be addressed for one minute or two when he lines up behind center for the Browns.
Watson still has three sexual misconduct lawsuits pending against him, and those certainly need to be mentioned any time that someone talks about him. Just because he’s not facing criminal charges does not mean that he has been exonerated. He most certainly has not been.
Also, the media can’t let Watson’s situation fade come time for the playoff chase, because the Browns must not be allowed to go back to business as usual after condoning and encouraging his behavior.
They did so by giving him an unprecedented contract, that allowed for him lose as little money as possible during a potential suspension, shaking the quarterback market guaranteeing him $230 million, and eventually lauding him for his “dedication to working on himself both on and off of the field,” in a press release following the 11-game suspension that was finalized within the weeks following the NFL’s investigation. That investigation concluded that Watson had violated the league’s private conduct coverage in a grotesque method.
That truth can’t be allowed to run away with a Browns’ go catcher when Watson drops a go in considered one of their arms for an enormous play.