The long-simmering tension around the Deshaun Watson era in Cleveland came to a head in Week 7 as the quarterback tore his Achilles’ and Browns fans at Huntington Bank Field booed him off the field.
After the game, Watson’s Browns teammates — most notably backup quarterback Jameis Winston and pass rusher Myles Garrett — came to his defense and chided the fans for their boos.
The incident left everybody looking bad, and longtime sports reporter Jemele Hill on Monday called out both Browns players and fans for the way they handled the oft-injured, alleged perpetrator of sexual misconduct Watson before and after his Week 7 injury.
“They’re being … very insensitive to the women that Deshaun Watson may have possibly assaulted, or women period,” Hill said on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz of teammates coming to Watson’s defense. “When you call being accused of sexual misconduct … over two dozen times, that is not a unique circumstance. That is not overcoming an obstacle. Those are situations and problems you, with your conduct, possibly created.”
Hill acknowledged that because of NFL players’ fierce sense of brotherhood and heightened competition on the gridiron, they are liable to fixate on their personal connections to teammates. However, Hill argued that Garrett and Winston went too far, painting Watson as something he is not.
“None of this was forced on Deshaun Watson. People were happy to love him as a football player and an upstanding person,” Hill said. “He is the one who changed all that. If y’all are all about accountability the way that y’all say, then you need to be accountable to the fact that it is possible that this man has done something so heinous, and here you are talking about his character.”
As for the fans that booed Watson as he was carted off the field, Hill agreed it was “classless.”
Instead, she drew attention to the way in which many Browns fans, at stadium tailgates and online, went out of their way to defend Watson against credible accusations of sexual misconduct and defend Cleveland’s decision to trade for him and give him a huge guaranteed contract.
“They were the ones who were equally complicit in wanting him to be there and dismissing a lot of the serious allegations against him,” Hill said. “It just seems highly hypocritical to me that what turns you off against Deshaun Watson now is that he was bad at football … if he was really good at football, if the Browns were winning, and if that offense looked different, they would not be booing him. They would be celebrating him.”
In April 2021, Watson was accused by more than two dozen women of sexual assault and misconduct during massage sessions. He sat out the 2021 season before the NFL suspended him 11 games a year later. Two grand juries chose not to pursue charges against Watson stemming from the original allegations, and Watson settled with 23 of 24 women.
Cleveland acquired Watson in March 2022 for three-first round picks and more before handing him a $230 million contract.
This past September, a new woman filed a lawsuit alleging sexual assault and battery in October 2020, unrelated to a massage. Watson, through his lawyer, denied those charges.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.