{"id":8110,"date":"2022-03-28T18:03:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T18:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/lavie\/?p=8110"},"modified":"2022-03-28T18:03:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T18:03:57","slug":"to-the-nfl-morality-is-an-obstacle-and-nothing-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2022\/03\/28\/to-the-nfl-morality-is-an-obstacle-and-nothing-else\/","title":{"rendered":"To the NFL, morality is an obstacle, and nothing else"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Branden Matassa ’22, OTG editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just over a year ago, Deshaun Watson was coming off the best season of his young career. Despite his team only winning four games, Watson\u2019s performance was commended by many, as he threw for 4823 yards, 33 touchdowns and only seven interceptions. One of the NFL\u2019s youngest and brightest stars was at his peak of praise. He even used that power and leverage to request a trade from the Texans, despite signing a long-term contract over the previous offseason. Everything was going great, that is, until a few months later when trade demands would become the least of his worries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On March 16, 2021, an attorney announced that a civil lawsuit would be filed against Watson. The lawsuit claimed that Watson was sexually inappropriate with a massage therapist during a session. Within the next week, the number of civil cases against Watson reached 14. The number of cases, while deeply alarming, were only a tip of the iceberg. On March 29, 2021, an article in \u201cSports Illustrated\u201d detailed the accounts of one of Watson\u2019s alleged victims. This woman wasn\u2019t a part of any of the lawsuits aimed at Watson, but wanted to tell her story with hope of preventing it from happening to others. The details are deeply disturbing, and if true, would likely jeopardize Watson\u2019s NFL future and possibly more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By April 14, the 22nd<\/sup> and final case was filed. The NFL world was in disbelief, myself included. At the time, Watson was regarded by many in the media and around the NFL as a decent person, known for his leadership and charitable efforts. So to even see his name connected to such vile accusations was shocking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For months, trade talks were quiet. NFL teams wouldn\u2019t consider trading for Watson if there wasn\u2019t any guarantee he would play in the NFL again. In terms of media attention, any discussion of Watson was primarily focused on his legal situation and the potential ramifications of the allegations. This would all change just weeks before the start of the 2021 season. At this point, NFL teams switched their focus to one thing: winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the NFL, winning supersedes everything. Actually, scratch that. Winning supersedes everything except for money. Money is really what matters, at least to the NFL owners, who really hold all the cards. Anyways, let\u2019s get back on topic. For years teams have disregarded a wide range of domestic violence and sexual harassment, if it meant that they could win more games or sell more tickets. Just as recently as December 2018, a February 2018 surveillance video of Kareem Hunt, then star running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, was released, showing Hunt shoving and kicking a woman. Hunt was never arrested, and charges were never pressed, but the souring optics of the incident were enough for the Chiefs to release Hunt just hours after the video went public. Though, Hunt was a great player, meaning his talent still weighed heavily on the minds of desperate talent-needy teams. Like clockwork, bygones became bygones and Hunt was signed by the Cleveland Browns on February 11, 2019. Hunt didn\u2019t go without any punishment, as the NFL did see Hunt\u2019s actions as contrary to its personal conduct policy and suspended him for 8 games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now should Kareem Hunt have been banned from the NFL, that\u2019s hard to say. We do live in the land of second chances, but on the other hand should such a prestigious sports league have such high tolerance for actions like these? There are likely people on both sides of the argument, but that isn\u2019t what I\u2019m focused on. The speed in which Hunt was signed by another team is what\u2019s so concerning. With situations in which no criminal charges are proven, there is essentially one policy: serve a suspension, then resume playing as if nothing happened. That\u2019s of course unless a player kneels during the national anthem as a protest to police brutality and the inequal treatment of minorities in the United States. If a player does that, he\u2019s blackballed from the league. Unfortunately, that\u2019s a rabbit hole to climb down some other time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s switch gears back to Deshaun Watson and fast-forward to March 11, 2022. A grand jury was set to consider the nine criminal complaints against Watson. The outcome of this deposition would be telling, in terms of Watson\u2019s future in the NFL. If he were to receive criminal charges, then his days of throwing a football would be gone. Although, that reality wasn\u2019t reached as the grand jury returned \u201cno\u201d bills on all of the nine criminal complaints, citing lack of sufficient evidence. To teams around the NFL this was the turning point, they could now feasibly consider trading for Watson. Now, take a second and think about this. Sure, the criminal cases were dismissed, but was that such a surprise considering the accusations were not caught on video and lacked biological evidence? Of course this doesn\u2019t mean that these things didn\u2019t occur, there are still 22 women saying that Watson engaged in sexual misconduct of some sort. Watson\u2019s criminal charges were only a formality for the NFL, once dismissed, teams suddenly could sleep at night knowing that at least they would be trading for a player who faced only 22 civil lawsuits. Once again, the NFL\u2019s process proves to be deeply lacking, especially in considering the potential victims involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next week or so, Watson\u2019s trade buzz was at an all-time high. Multiple teams were reportedly willing to mortgage their future by trading a horde of draft picks for Watson, despite the likelihood of considerable fan backlash and an expected suspension. Come March 18, Watson was dealt to the Cleveland Browns for three first round picks, one third round pick and two 4th<\/sup> round picks. This was just one domino to fall. The Browns then signed Watson to a five-year 230-million-dollar contract, fully guaranteed. For a long time, guaranteed money was hard to come by in the NFL. Due to the violence of the sport and the prevalence of injury, teams are usually reluctant to make most of a contract guaranteed. So, to sign a player to this level of deal, especially when considering the looming allegations, is dumbfounding. But wait, there\u2019s more. The Browns did Watson another favor by structuring his contract so that Watson only receives a base salary of $1.035 million this upcoming season. This formality is so important because Watson\u2019s likely suspension will take place during this season, allowing Watson to lose far less money in game checks than he would have otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Browns might be the culprits here, but plenty of other teams would have taken the same risks if it meant they would have a pro-bowl caliber player under center. What\u2019s sad is that the real victims here are the women that have to go on seeing Watson making millions, while their voices seem to have been silenced. Sure, he\u2019ll receive a suspension, but that weighs little in comparison with the trauma that Watson potentially put these women through. Of course, Watson could be the real victim in all of this. He could be innocent, and all 22 women could be lying. If that\u2019s the case, then those women should face their own legal consequences. Innocent or guilty, the allegations are disturbing. The number of allegations alone should alarm anyone and should freeze potential trades and $200-plus million fully guaranteed contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the Browns sell their soul by trading for Watson? It\u2019s a fair question to ask and its one that the Browns will have to face from fans and media for the foreseeable future. The more critical question is whether the NFL is ever going to take domestic violence or sexual misconduct seriously, because over the last decade they\u2019ve given more slaps on the wrist than I can count.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Branden Matassa ’22, OTG editor Just over a year ago, Deshaun Watson was coming off the best season of his young career. Despite his team only winning four games, Watson\u2019s performance was commended by […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}