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The chickens are coming home to roost for the Cleveland Browns when it comes to the Deshaun Watson situation in more ways than one.
On Sunday, kicking off his third season as a member of the Browns with an entire offseason of training, conditioning, and practice under his belt, Deshaun Watson looked abjectly terrible in Cleveland’s 33-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, completing 24 of 45 passes for 169 yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions, while also routinely missing open throws.
Then, a day later, the skeletons in Watson’s closet that the Browns have been hoping to avoid reappeared once again, as the 28-year-old former Heisman Trophy winner was hit with another, and particularly disturbing, lawsuit alleging sexual assault. While Watson has been hit with over 20 allegations of sexual assault/misconduct, this is the first to be filed since he officially joined the Browns.
Continuing their track record of trying to bury their head in the sand and ignore Watson’s immense controversy, the Browns shirked responsibility and put the onus on the NFL to do something about Watson, quietly telling The Athletic on Tuesday: “We will respect the due process our legal system affords regarding the recently filed civil suit and follow the NFL’s guidelines on this matter.”
While the Browns are doing their best to ignore the situation, it feels as though an inevitable boiling point in on the horizon this season, as nearly all of the replies to the team’s content on X, formerly Twitter, are from fans of the team begging them to cut Watson, who is not only (allegedly) a terrible person but is also failing to live up to his behemoth contract in spectacular fashion.
Despite the new allegations against him, in which a woman going by the name Jane Doe accuses him of graphically sexually assaulting her against her will during an October 2020 date, all signs point to Watson taking the field for the Browns in their Week 2 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, September 15.