OT - The Early DeSean Watson Cleveland Browns NFL Suspension Line

[whisper]

They got three days to do so. Part of me thinks the NFL just wants this to go away and they won’t appeal.

They will ONLY appeal if there is a huge uproar over the decision made, all they really care about is PR and how it impacts their $, nothing else. If there isn't a public outcry over the punishment not being enough, the NFL will move on and prepare for the upcoming season. Done.

[feltdizz]

They will ONLY appeal if there is a huge uproar over the decision made, all they really care about is PR and how it impacts their $, nothing else. If there isn't a public outcry over the punishment not being enough, the NFL will move on and prepare for the upcoming season. Done.

yep, heard some rumors they wanted a year or indefinite but this new approach makes it easier to blame the courts and not the NFL.

[Northern_Blitz]

wonder if the NFL will?

I think Watson's side said they go to real court if it's a year long.

And their big argument is that the owners have done lots of terrible things with no repercussions (when I think the policy said that owners will be held to a higher standard than players).

And the league seems to be pretty terrified of transparency on lots of stuff.

So I think they won't appeal it and he'll stay at 6 games.

Or maybe they increase it to 8 games or something...only to lower it back to 6 for good behavior (kind of like how Ben's suspension worked).

I think it's too small. The team settled with 30 women. That's 15x Ben's number of accusations. But the same punishment....although I still believe that it was the team that pushed the league to suspend Ben for 6 since they could only do 4 and they wanted to try to scare him straight.

[Northern_Blitz]

If he was suspended last year he wouldn’t have been suspended this year.

I still think it helped lower his punishment since he didn’t play. Also may help the Texans since they “punished themselves” by sitting Watson.

I get that him not playing last year hurts the team.

But he still got paid 100% of his salary.

And sitting didn't hurt his market value.

Even this year's suspension doesn't really hit him in the wallet given how the Browns worked his contract (which I think they should have some consequence for).

[NorthCoast]

To be clear, the judge's ruling was as an arbitrator. Her decision is not a legal sentence. The NFL can do as it wishes with her decision; accept it, lengthen it, throw it out, shorten it. But I expect they will respect the judge's decision. After all, why agree to the process if they were not going to abide by it?

[Buzz]

I get that him not playing last year hurts the team.

But he still got paid 100% of his salary.

And sitting didn't hurt his market value.

Even this year's suspension doesn't really hit him in the wallet given how the Browns worked his contract (which I think they should have some consequence for).

Andrew Brandt
@AndrewBrandt
If the suspension holds, Watson will make $45.65M in 2022 for being on the roster for 11 games.

[steeler_fan_in_t.o.]

They will ONLY appeal if there is a huge uproar over the decision made, all they really care about is PR and how it impacts their $, nothing else. If there isn't a public outcry over the punishment not being enough, the NFL will move on and prepare for the upcoming season. Done.

Bingo.

The league brings in an independent, female, arbiter to preside over the decision. She comes down on the lowest side of the estimated suspension. Right now the NFL hierarchy is holed up and monitoring the reaction and determining the value lost vs. the value gained by having the star QB playing. If they determine uproar > value of Watson then they appeal and raise the penalty. If uproar < value then 6 games it is.

Shockingly, in the decision she agrees with all of the complaints in the case - he did violate the personal conduct policy, he did use his power imbalance to subject women to unwanted (non-violent) sexual advances, etc. The reason for the lower number is that past punishment has not been as harsh for these types of violations - ie. Watson would not have known that violations of this type would warrant more than 6 games based on league punishment history.

[NorthCoast]

Bingo.

The league brings in an independent, female, arbiter to preside over the decision. She comes down on the lowest side of the estimated suspension. Right now the NFL hierarchy is holed up and monitoring the reaction and determining the value lost vs. the value gained by having the star QB playing. If they determine uproar > value of Watson then they appeal and raise the penalty. If uproar < value then 6 games it is.

Shockingly, in the decision she agrees with all of the complaints in the case - he did violate the personal conduct policy, he did use his power imbalance to subject women to unwanted (non-violent) sexual advances, etc. The reason for the lower number is that past punishment has not been as harsh for these types of violations - ie. Watson would not have known that violations of this type would warrant more than 6 games based on league punishment history.

Her problem is she viewed the 4 complaints as one incident of transgression. Meanwhile, Roethlisberger had 6 weeks suspension for 2 incidents. If she correctly evaluated them as individual incidents, it should have been almost a season of suspension.

[Joel Buchsbaum]

A hear the NFL wan't happy with the 6 game suspension, as the evidence clearly showed Watson was guilty, and will now be looking for a year suspension.

[Northern_Blitz]

Her problem is she viewed the 4 complaints as one incident of transgression. Meanwhile, Roethlisberger had 6 weeks suspension for 2 incidents. If she correctly evaluated them as individual incidents, it should have been almost a season of suspension.

If they were evaluated as individual events and used Ben's suspension as a benchmark (even the reduced 4 games), it would be 40+ games.

He won't get that, but it does seem like she treated it as a single event rather than a serial kind of thing.

[Northern_Blitz]

A hear the NFL wan't happy with the 6 game suspension, as the evidence clearly showed Watson was guilty, and will now be looking for a year suspension.

Who knows what will happen, but I read they are looking for an "indefinite suspension of at least a year". And since the guy who's appealing either decides the appeal or appoints someone to decide it, it seems likely that the appeal will be successful.

It will be interesting to see is Watson's camp does go to court with it. And what comes out if they do.

[Bawb the Revelator]

Who knows what will happen, but I read they are looking for an "indefinite suspension of at least a year". And since the guy who's appealing either decides the appeal or appoints someone to decide it, it seems likely that the appeal will be successful.

It will be interesting to see is Watson's camp does go to court with it. And what comes out if they do.

In a fair world you'd be right, Bro Blitz. The NFL pays Goodell insane money to keep a lid on these types of eruptions. You're right it will be in court. Whoever's Judge will finesse the Juror Instructions just enough to ensure that Browns' Owner Jimmy Haslam doesn't take too hard of a Quarter Billion Dollar plus bath. FDR's DOJ nailed Jimmy's great uncle in 1942 for mixing money with Hitler and didn't make it stick 100 percent with the 20th century's best POTUS. These are different times, Amigo.

[whisper]

A hear the NFL wan't happy with the 6 game suspension, as the evidence clearly showed Watson was guilty, and will now be looking for a year suspension.

I got a question screaming to be answered: Why did the NFL switch to a 3rd-party judge but then just ignore her decision and move off her ruling? What the f--k was the purpose of bringing her in to begin with if they can just blow off her ruling regardless? It makes zero sense. This mean Goodell is still judge, jury and executioner, nothing has changed one iota, nothing. It's all just another layer, waste of time.

I don't understand how anything has changed a bit. If they don't like her ruling, they can flush it down the toilet.

[feltdizz]

Her problem is she viewed the 4 complaints as one incident of transgression. Meanwhile, Roethlisberger had 6 weeks suspension for 2 incidents. If she correctly evaluated them as individual incidents, it should have been almost a season of suspension.

You make it sound like Ben had 2 accusations the same year.

I don’t think Ben missed any games after his first accusation.

He didn’t heed the warning..

Then had his second one a few years later and he was suspended.

[Sugar]

It would be cool, IMO, if the NFL would stay away from suspending players for any kind of civil/criminal infraction until there was some kind of legal judgement first. Stick to PED's and violations of NFL policies.