Deshaun Watson has benefited the most from his collegiate career. As a junior quarterback with the Clemson Tigers, he led the ACC champions to a College Football Playoff National Championship over the Alabama Crimson Tide in a rematch of the previous year’s title game.
Although Watson is three years into a four-year, $13.84 million rookie contract signed after the Houston Texans selected him in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft, the argument could be made he missed on an abundance of earnings from his college playing days.
However, Watson, when asked in Wednesday’s press conference to weigh in on the state of California’s recent “Fair Pay to Play Act,” admitted he saw both sides of the argument as to whether or not college athletes should be paid.
“I don’t know. I mean, it can go both ways, honestly,” Watson said. “For me personally, I can’t choose a side. I see both sides. I see where it can kind of change a lot different ways as far as guys getting paid and things like that.
“But then also I can see — I’ve lived and experienced that side where I didn’t get paid and I kind of went to school and worked my way to the position I am in today.
“For me, whatever happens, happens. I’m not going to choose a side. I’m right in the middle. That’s just how the NCAA and their rules and their laws and contracts are going to have to deal with it. For me, I see both sides and I really don’t pick a side, honestly.”
It’s hard for the Pro Bowl signal caller to pick a side. After all, he has enough on his plate to worry about with the second of a two-game road trip upcoming as the Texans commence their season series with the Indianapolis Colts in Week 7 for a mid-October winner-take-all bout for first place in the AFC South.
