Deshaun Watson the quarterback is not the problem
By STEVE KING
Let’s sort out this Deshaun Watson situation in a very clear and concise manner.
If you read this site regularly, then you know how adamant I am about quarterback being the most important position not just in football, but also team sports overall.
Indeed, it’s all about the quarterback. If a team has a good one, then it has a good chance. And if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.
Like any team, then, there is no other way about it in that the Browns need a good quarterback to finally get past the place they’ve already been five times before, to the doorstep of the Super Bowl at the conference championship game, and make it to the Super Bowl, and ultimately to win it.
If the Browns’ deep thinkers — owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam, General Manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski — think that Baker Mayfield is not the guy to get them there, then, by all means, they need to make a change and find the guy who they think can do it. That’s their job. It’s what they’ve been hired to do. The end-game is to win it all, and if a team isn’t in it to do that, then it is wasting its time.
That much, I get, even though I still believe a healthy Mayfield is that guy. We can debate that some other time. Now is not that time because that ship has already sailed.
It’s just that I don’t want the alternative to be Deshaun Watson. Under no circumstances whatsoever — forever, period — do I want him.
From a quarterbacking standpoint, I think he’s one of the top ones in the game. I just don’t like Deshaun Watson, the person, or at least the person he appears to be with 22 women ready to sack him with civil lawsuits over claims that he sexually assaulted them.
Nothing — not even a shot at a Super Bowl — is worth doing what they’ve done. Common sense tells you that it appears as if he may well be in huge trouble. But even just the fact the Browns are willing to roll the dice with someone who, at least in the court of public opinion, has that stigma and will forever have it, no matter what happens from here, is enough to make them accomplices of sorts. Indeed, by trading for Watson, they are condoning his behavior.
It’s not just a bad look. It’s a horrible look, for perception is 90 percent of reality.
He will be the face of their franchise going forward, and if he’s found guilty in just one of these civil cases, what does it say about that picture, and what the Browns stand for, or don’t?
Instead of putting their integrity and reputation at risk, the Browns just should have drafted better.
But because they didn’t, they have to cut corners. And these are not corners that I, and I think a lot of other people are — willing to cut.
