How Deshaun Watson Became the N.F.L.’s Biggest Scandal (Published 2022) (2024)

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From New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Over the past year, more than 20 different women have accused the NFL’s most sought after quarterback, Deshaun Watson, of sexual misconduct. Despite those allegations, Watson has signed one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of football, and will take the field today for training camp.

I spoke with my colleague, Jenny Vrentas, about how one of the NFL’s biggest stars has now become its biggest scandal.

It’s Wednesday, July 27.

Jenny, tell us about Deshaun Watson. What do we need to know?

Well, he’s one of the most talented quarterbacks in the NFL.

He was a championship winning quarterback both in high school in Georgia, and also for Clemson.

When he was drafted in 2017, he was supposed to be the next star quarterback, the future of the Houston, Texan’s franchise.

And what happens to him once he enters the NFL?

Well, he immediately starts to be the kind of difference maker for the Texans that they had hoped for. Actually, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston right before his rookie season.

I really appreciate you all. So I wanted to get my first game check to y’all to help you all out some type of way.

And he donated his first game check to stadium cafeteria employees who are affected by the storm.

Wow.

And then he became successful on the field, and started reinvigorating the franchise. He led them to the playoffs two years in a row. And there was the expectation that because of the way he played, because he was emerging as a top five quarterback in the NFL, he could be the person that could deliver a championship to Houston.

He’s a very exciting player, both a strong passer, and an exciting runner. He could score touchdowns a lot of different ways. And in the modern NFL, you want a player that can do a lot of things, that can pose a lot of different challenges to defenses, make them have to defend a lot of aspects of his game. So Deshaun Watson on the field was exactly that.

So it seems like he’s quickly becoming a star.

Yeah. And because he was such a talented player, he wants to make sure that he’s spending his prime years as a quarterback with a team where he can win a championship. And things sort of started to change with the Texans organization. There was a lot of turnover. He didn’t like the direction that the team was headed in.

And so ultimately, after the 2020 season he requests a trade. And from that point forward, it’s a huge question of where will this incredibly talented quarterback play next? But then all of a sudden out of the blue, a lawsuit is filed. And it’s alleging sexual misconduct against Deshaun Watson in a massage appointment.

And who files this lawsuit?

So the woman who filed this lawsuit, her name is Ashley Solis. She’s in her late 20s. She has a massage therapy business. At the time, was working out of her home. She said in her lawsuit that she got a direct message over Instagram from Deshaun Watson in March 2020.

She had never been in touch with him before. She had never worked with any other NFL players, or Texans athletes. So this message kind of surprised her, but yet, she was excited, because she was trying to grow her small business, obtain new clients, and he was certainly a prominent client that would help her business. And so they began discussing scheduling for the appointment, and set up a session at her studio in her home.

According to the lawsuit, when their appointment began, Watson got completely naked on the massage table only covered by a small towel that he had brought with him. She said he then began to aggressively dictate how he wanted her to perform the massage, asking that she didn’t use her knuckles or elbows, only her hands. And he kept directing her toward his groin area.

She started to feel uncomfortable, she said in her lawsuit. She became a bit scared and confused as the massage progressed. But she also didn’t want to confront him both because of his physical stature, and also because of his importance as a client to her business.

Later in the massage, he began directing her towards his penis. And she says he purposely moved his erect and exposed penis, and put it onto her hand. At that point, she says she ended the massage and asked him to leave. She wanted him out of her home.

She became so upset by the situation that she says she began crying. In response she says, Watson issued something of a threat to her, according to her lawsuit, saying, I know you have a career and a reputation, and I know you would hate for someone to mess with yours, just like I don’t want anyone messing with mine. So that’s the story she told in her lawsuit.

And then all of a sudden —

Other women come forward with very similar stories.

They’re all saying that they had massage appointments with Deshaun Watson, that he turned sexual without their consent.

The lawsuits are piling up at a stunning pace. Everyone is kind of blown away by how quickly this is snowballing. I mean, within a month there were 22 lawsuits filed against him.

And then —

Ashley Solis comes forward publicly, putting her face and her name to the allegations in front of cameras live at a press conference.

And she sat there flanked by her lawyers, and she discussed the impact it had on her.

That it affected her ability to work full-time, that it had lingered over the last year.

That it was something she thought about often, and that had affected her family who were also Texans fans, and had seen Deshaun Watson as a pillar of the community — not just a promising player for the football team, but also a promising figure in the Houston area.

And so what is the response from the public to this allegation, the lawsuit, the news conference, the claim?

Well, on the one hand, there was some skepticism. This is a star quarterback who has a squeaky clean reputation. But at the same time, the number of women coming forward was just so jarring, this had to be taken seriously.

Mm-hm. And so what do you do?

Well, I decided I wanted to hear directly from women who had been in a massage room with Deshaun Watson. So I just started reaching out to massage therapists in the Houston area. I found a lot of them over Instagram.

That was how Watson connected with many of the women according to their lawsuits. And that’s also how a lot of massage therapists advertise their business and find new clients. So I did a search for massage therapists Houston, and I started connecting with people.

And what did they tell you?

I truly had no idea what I would find. But very quickly, I was able to connect with women who had been in massage rooms with Deshaun Watson. And what I was struck by was in my conversations with women, some who filed lawsuits, some who hadn’t filed lawsuits, there were very common details in terms of the way he reached out over Instagram. He’d never interacted with these women before, suddenly wanted to make a massage appointment with them.

And then when they got into the room with him, he would either uncover himself they said, or only want to be covered by a small towel, which is not standard practice for massages. And then he would take the massage in a sexual direction they said, in some cases, touching their hand with his penis. And a handful of cases, he ejacul*ted on the women. And in the most severe allegations, they said that he coerced them into sexual acts that they did not want to perform.

And as I’m talking to these women, so are the police. 10 women file criminal complaints against Watson, some who have sued, and some who haven’t. And that begins a criminal investigation that lasts about a year.

And what is the result of that criminal investigation?

Prosecutors decide to take the cases to a grand jury. And grand juries in two counties in Texas ultimately declined to indict Deshaun Watson on any of the 10 criminal complaints.

Hm. So there are no charges brought against Deshaun Watson despite all these allegations. What’s your understanding of why that was?

I was surprised, because I had not only spoken with some of these women, but I had also reviewed some of the corroborating evidence, which doesn’t always exist in cases like this. But in some of these cases, there were messages sent at the time. There were additional witnesses that they had told about the accounts contemporaneously.

So there was some of that available information for the grand jury to consider. But grand jury proceedings are by law, secret. They take place behind closed doors. So it’s hard to know exactly what went on. For Watson’s camp though, this was a major victory. Not only does he not have to face criminal charges, but as we know, he’s been looking for a new team, and essentially, NFL teams see this as a green light to begin a bidding war for his football talents.

How much of a bidding war?

An intense bidding war.

Basically any NFL team that might have been mildly unsatisfied with their quarterback was considering if they should try to pursue Deshaun Watson.

The sports news cycle is trained on Watson. And the only topic of discussion is where he will play next, because again, he’s a top five talent in the NFL on the football field.

So there end up being four finalists, the Falcons, the Panthers, the Saints and the Cleveland Browns. And Watson begins meeting with these teams in Houston. They’re recruiting him, tripping over each other to have the opportunity to sign Watson.

And then —

The Browns end up winning this bidding war by offering him an unprecedented contract.

Guaranteeing him $230 million over five years. His entire contract is fully guaranteed.

Wow.

$230 million, that is an enormous payday.

It’s by far the most guaranteed money ever given to an NFL player.

So these teams and the Browns, who eventually make this winning bid, do not at all seem bothered by the fact that Watson has been facing all these allegations.

Yeah, it seemed as though the only thing that mattered to teams was that Watson did not face criminal charges. But at the same time, there is still the matter of the Browns introducing Deshaun Watson as their next franchise quarterback. And the team certainly understands on some level that there is a public relations problem here.

The press conference that unfolded has to be one of the most bizarre introductory press conferences ever in NFL history.

The team is basically on its heels defending the decision. And the team ultimately can’t provide a lot of answers to the questions that reporters are asking.

Notably, Andrew Berry, the Browns’ General Manager is asked if he and the team believed Watson had committed any wrongdoing.

We felt very confident in Deshaun the person.

And his response was kind of roundabout.

And we believe that as he gets into the community and our organization, he’s going to make a positive impact.

It was kind of a jarring non-answer, because if you’re committing $230 million of guaranteed money to a quarterback, shouldn’t you be able to answer whether or not he had committed wrongdoing?

And they don’t.

And they don’t.

First, I want to say thank you to D.

The other thing that happened in this press conference it was the first real chance for the media to question Deshaun Watson about the allegations.

I mean, I don’t have any regrets, because I never did anything that these people are alleging.

He repeated a standard line throughout the course of the press conference saying over and over again —

I’ve never assaulted any woman. I never disrespected any woman.

That he had never assaulted any woman, he had never disrespected any woman, but he was also asked some more specific questions.

Would he consider seeking counseling. And he said —

It’s hard for me to say the counseling part, because I don’t have a problem. I don’t have an issue.

That he didn’t have a problem, and that’s what he’d been saying from the beginning. He also faced some specific questions about his interactions with massage therapists, including the number of massage therapists that he saw.

He kind of downplayed that number, saying that it took place over a longer period of time.

I can’t get too far into the details. But as business is working, you move and meet different people, and people have different schedules and blocks.

So there were some tough questions in this press conference. But there were also a couple of reporters asking football questions. And I have to imagine that the Browns were hoping that would be the focus moving forward.

So in spite of everything that has emerged, it’s clear that the Browns are moving forward with Watson as their quarterback. So is that more or less the end of it?

Well, there are no criminal charges. A contract has been signed. DeSean Watson has a new team, but I really felt like there was more to learn about what happened between Watson and these massage therapists. And I wanted to find out what that was.

We’ll be right back.

So Jenny, when we left off, Deshaun Watson has just signed this historically rich contract. And you have decided to dig in and see what else you can uncover about what happened between Watson and these massage therapists who have accused him of misconduct. So what did you end up finding?

Well, I found out a lot that hadn’t yet been public. The police investigation had taken place behind closed doors. But as these civil lawsuits continue to move forward, a lot of information was produced. And I also was continuing to talk to different women.

And one of the things I found was that he had worked with far more massage therapists than was previously known. He had acknowledged that he’d hired about 40 different therapists. He said that had taken place across the five seasons he played in Houston.

Right.

But I found in a much narrower period just from fall 2019 through spring 2021, he had booked appointments with at least 66 different women.

Wow.

And one thing that stood out was not just the number, but he was pretty indiscriminate in who he booked with. He wasn’t asking these women about their experience level, if they had done sports massage before, even whether or not they were licensed. And he was also pretty persistent in booking these appointments.

Some of the evidence that came out in the civil lawsuits were message exchanges with women that he was trying to book massages with. There was this one instance where a massage therapist told him that she was in the middle of moving. And he replied, “And you couldn’t get away just for an hour from moving?” So there really was a sense of urgency in how quickly he wanted to meet up with these women, and how often.

In another exchange with the same therapist, he asked her if she had any availability that same day after 4:00 PM. She told him, not today, but I can do any time tomorrow. He replied to her, “Damn, nothing? You can squeeze in an hour.”

He also told her later in that same exchange, “Just trying to support Black businesses.” And this was an approach he used with multiple different women. Not only were they aware that he was a prominent client who could be good for their business, he also was explicitly telling them that he was trying to support their businesses. And I think that really played into the power imbalance that existed here.

Mm-hm. Jenny, I want to just zero in for a moment on the sense of urgency, and the indiscriminateness that you just described, because there’s almost something compulsive about this behavior, Watson repeatedly telling therapists, I need a massage. I need it now. Make time for me. Why can’t you make time for me? What do you make of that?

Most professional athletes have a small number of therapists that they work with. Their body is their business. It’s vital to their livelihood. It is vital that they work with people who are highly trained.

And so they generally only trust a couple of people to work with. So Watson’s pattern of behavior really stood out as being different. It was unusual.

So what else did you find?

Well, I found out that even before the first lawsuit was filed, a woman he had worked with posted about him on Instagram. She shared some of their text messages, their Cash App receipts. And she said, “I could really expose you.” Watson told the Security Director for the Texans who’s a former Secret Service agent about these messages.

And the security director not only got the post taken down, but he also put a non-disclosure agreement in Watson’s Locker. And the idea was that Watson would then bring this NDA to future massage appointments. And in fact, just a couple of days later, he started bringing it with him, and asked the massage therapist that he was working with to sign the agreement.

So this is very intriguing, because suddenly, it feels like Watson’s team is becoming complicit in what he is alleged to be up to here with massage therapists. And he’s now asking these massage therapists to legally commit to never discussing what happens in these sessions.

That’s right. And while we don’t know exactly what the Texans knew about Watson’s massage habit, I think the NDA is a really good example of how powerful people are often enabled by the institutions around them, whether knowingly or not, just based on the resources they have access to.

So Jenny, given everything you’re finding, and that you’re uncovering in real time as a reporter about Watson and these interactions with these therapists, I’m curious, are any of these details prompting either police or prosecutors to reconsider the original decision not to bring charges against him?

It’s always possible that cases can be reconsidered with new evidence. But the reality is that for many of these cases, the statute of limitations is running out. So then I think the focus moves away from the criminal justice system, and becomes will Watson face consequences? And will he face consequences in his sports career from the NFL? And I think we do start to see a little bit of a shift as these details are made public.

The rest of the sports world started to take a greater interest in the allegations themselves.

Not just Watson’s football career, or football future, but the details of the allegations themselves.

I think there’s a lot of power in the specifics of some of the accounts. I think there’s a lot of power in reading some of these message exchanges. There’s been a tendency with this case to kind of talk about the women in aggregate, but when you’re forced to consider the specifics of any one account, I think it becomes a lot more real. And I think that’s what happened. We sought to present some of these accounts in a really granular way, and force the public to consider the specifics of what these women are alleging happened.

And I think pressure built on Watson as a result. And a few things happened. One, he settled 20 of the now 24 civil lawsuits against him.

He settled 20 of these lawsuits. Wow.

That’s right. Just weeks after saying he wasn’t thinking about settling, he settles most of the lawsuits. And the other thing that’s happening is that there’s increasing pressure on the NFL, because throughout all of this, the NFL has been conducting its own investigation of Watson. And they’re preparing to recommend discipline under the Personal Conduct Policy. And that’s happening at this essentially, peak of public scrutiny for Watson and his actions. So it’s not insignificant that at that point of time in which they’re about to recommend discipline, that all of this is going on.

Right. From what you’re saying, it’s going to be very hard for the NFL to do anything other than issue a meaningful punishment for Watson.

Right. And they have this new collectively bargained process where the initial discipline is issued by a neutral arbiter, jointly appointed by the league and the Players Association. But the NFL makes a recommendation. And the recommendation they make is a very strong one. They recommend an indefinite suspension for Watson.

Wow.

And that he would have to wait a year to apply for reinstatement.

That sounds like a meaningful punishment. Is it?

Well, I think it’s always hard to set a number on what’s appropriate for alleged misconduct, alleged sexual misconduct. It’s never going to feel great to say, this number of games equates to this alleged behavior. But I do think it’s a strong message from the NFL that they’re taking these allegations seriously, that even though there weren’t criminal charges, even though his new team signed him to this massive contract, that they still think that the behavior he is alleged to have engaged in was inappropriate, and should keep him off the field for an extended period of time.

About that $230 million, Jenny, if Watson is subjected to this year long suspension, or maybe even longer, does that have any impact on that money? Or will he still be paid that huge guaranteed sum?

It’s not uncommon for contracts to have language in them that essentially protects the team from having to pay all of the money to a player in certain circ*mstances. We don’t know all of those details in this case. But what we do know is that there have been no indications that the Cleveland Browns intend not to pay Deshaun Watson all of his guaranteed money, even despite all of the new details that have come out.

So that raises the possibility that Watson will be punished by the NFL, and taken off the field, but will still be paid hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yes, that’s the most likely possibility.

Jenny, at the end of the day, I’m pretty struck that everything about this story has not played out the way these situations typically do in the MeToo era. This is an era defined by accusations of sexual misconduct made by women being taken very seriously, and triggering in many cases, immediate repercussions for the men accused of that misconduct in case after case, in the media, in Hollywood, in the corporate boardroom. That’s not what happened here. I mean, here is a powerful man, Deshaun Watson, accused by more than 20 different women of sexual misconduct, yet, he remains in his job.

He’s handsomely paid. All this a year after these allegations were made. And the punishment being contemplated for him in some ways, feels like a very well paid vacation. So what do you make of all of that? And how do you explain it?

This story has occupied a lot of my headspace over the last year. And this is something that I have grappled with understanding. I think there was almost a perfect storm of factors that undercut our understanding of the MeToo movement. I think the women that were coming forward were largely anonymous women working in a field that is incorrectly conflated with sex work.

And I think we sometimes forget that the NFL is not a moral enterprise, that it is a sports league, and entertainment institution, where winning is placed above all else. And that talent will excuse bad behavior. And in some ways, the way this whole case is played out is really similar to the power imbalance that these women say was present in the massage room with Deshaun Watson.

On the one hand, you have a powerful, rich athlete backed by a powerful, rich sports league. And on the other hand, you have people who are often the least listened to in our society, women, many of them women of color, working in massage therapy just trying to make a living.

Well Jenny, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, Michael.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to learn today, The Times reports that over the past few days, the Department of Justice has asked witnesses about Donald Trump’s involvement in the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, suggesting that federal prosecutors are now focusing directly on Trump. That does not mean that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the former President, a potentially momentous decision. But it represents a new and significant phase of the department’s investigation of the events around January 6.

And on Tuesday, the 27 countries of the European Union reached a deal to reduce their use of natural gas in an effort to end their reliance on Russia for energy. That in turn, will reduce Russia’s ability to retaliate against the EU as the EU seeks to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The EU nations have pledged to voluntarily reduce their use of natural gas by 15 percent by the spring, which will likely require their citizens to use less heat and air conditioning.

Today’s episode was produced by Rob Szypko, Carlos Prieto and Clare Toeniskoetter. It was edited by John Ketchum and Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Rowan Niemisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.