Editors’ note: This story contains accounts of sexual assault. If you or someone you know is a survivor of sexual assault, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or at https://www.rainn.org.
In addition to being suspended 11 games and paying a $5 million fine, Deshaun Watson also must “undergo a professional evaluation by behavioral experts and will follow their treatment program,” according to the NFL’s statement on the settlement with the players association.
However, there is reportedly a contingency on his reinstatement in connection with the counseling stipulation. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Browns’ quarterback must comply with the treatment plan. If Watson does not, “his reinstatement could be delayed, plus further discipline.”
Browns co-owner Dee Haslam commented during Thursday’s press conference about how counseling “takes time.
“You don’t just go to a counseling session and wake up and understand the impact it has,” Haslam said. “I think it’s a layering effect that takes weeks, months, a long time to get where you understand so much more about yourself. And I think Deshaun has made progress from the time he came here to now he’s making progress, but it’s not gonna happen overnight.”
Mutually appointed disciplinary officer Sue L. Robinson initially suspended Watson for six games, but the NFL appealed that decision. League commissioner Roger Goodell decided he would not handle the appeal, instead appointing former New Jersey attorney general Peter C. Harvey, who also serves on the NFL’s diversity advisory committee and consulted on the league’s discipline of Ezekiel Elliott in 2017. Goodell called Watson’s behavior “egregious” and “predatory.”
From March 2021 to June ’22, more than two dozen lawsuits were filed against Watson, detailing graphic accounts of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Only one was dropped due to privacy concerns in April ’21. The accounts range from Watson refusing to cover his genitals to the quarterback “touching [a plaintiff] with his penis and trying to force her to perform oral sex on him.”
He agreed to settle 20 of the 24 remaining active lawsuits in late June, and those cases have since been disposed, per the Harris County District Clerk’s website. Watson reportedly agreed to settle three of the remaining four suits filed against him ahead of Robinson’s disciplinary decision.
Watson previously denied all allegations against him, and two Texas grand juries declined to indict him on criminal charges earlier this spring. The quarterback delivered a broad apology “for any pain this situation has caused” and took “accountability for the decisions I made.” However, he maintained his innocence in a press conference Thursday.
