Washington Football Team: Hypocrisy surrounding Deshaun Watson perception

Deshaun Watson is reportedly on the trading block, and thousands of Washington Football Team fans are revealing their true nature in their push to trade for him. Hypocrisy abounds and it’s disappointing.

I’m a strong believer in the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”. There are truly at least two sides to every story, and there have certainly been countless situations in life where someone has been accused of horrible things, by multiple people, only to be utterly and completely exonerated. That’s why we give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t rush to judgement.

Has Deshaun Watson done the things at least 22 women are suing him over? I don’t know. You don’t know. Only he and those 22 women really know. Any football fan who makes the “innocent until proven guilty” defense of Deshaun Watson is well within their rights to do so. And the NFL has clearly taken that approach since they haven’t suspended Watson or even commented on his situation to this point. Until some kind of conclusion is reached by the legal system (criminal or civil) on the allegations, there probably should be no on-field ramifications.

But that is actually beside the point. The point is, Washington Football Team fans (of whom I normally proudly count myself as one of — the loyal, the faithful, the long-suffering, the informed, the passionate, and the perpetually skeptical) are falling all over themselves to make every conceivable defense of getting Watson in the Burgundy and Gold.

These same fans have vehemently and passionately championed Ron Rivera’s demands for cultural change. They have applauded the hiring of Julie Donaldson and Jason Wright and the teams they have assembled with an eye toward a more diverse and inclusive work environment. They have loudly and profusely demanded the ouster of Bruce Allen for, among many other obvious flaws, being a self-aggrandizing, unsuccessful, unapproachable empty suit who brushed his teeth with Coors Light.

And most importantly, perhaps, these fans have loudly bemoaned the NFL’s handling of the Beth Wilkinson investigation into the allegations of 40+ individuals who claimed that the Washington Football Team has had a culture of verbally and sexually abusive and harassing behavior, modeled and permitted by owner Dan Snyder. They were up in arms over the failure of the NFL to remove Dan Snyder over these persistent allegations. They were upset that the NFL chose to refrain from even suspending Snyder for his role in modeling and permitting this type of work environment within their beloved franchise.

I am not all that surprised that Washington Football Team fans have a different view of the Watson situation than the others. I am not surprised, but I am disappointed.

Bruce Allen, Larry Michaels, Alex Santos and a host of other former Washington Football Team employees probably deserved to lose their jobs as a result of the culture purge that has been taking place the last 18 months or so. They also probably deserved to lose their jobs on the merits of the franchise’s dismal performance under their leadership. More than any of them, Dan Snyder deserves to at least be punished by a lengthy personal fine and suspension, if not stripped of the team ownership. I think most reasonable WFT fans agree on that.

But if allegations and lawsuits and settlements are sufficient to convince us that Dan Snyder should be forced to sell the franchise, shouldn’t they be enough to keep us from wanting Deshaun Watson as  the franchise quarterback? Are we so blinded by his talent and upside that we can’t see the similarities in his and Snyder’s predicaments? Snyder has shown a blatant and on-going disregard for the value and dignity of human beings in his employ, especially women. We all believe it. We all find the allegations incredibly believable. Why would you not think the same of Watson?

I stand by my belief that Dan Snyder doesn’t deserve to remain as the steward of this proud franchise. His failure to build a successful organization remains a part of that calculation for me. He’s unfit to run such a massive enterprise purely on the miserable results he has produced. He is additionally disqualified, in my opinion, because of the disrespectful way he has treated the people in is organization, from coaches to cheerleaders. Deshaun Watson is accused of having similar disregard for the women he has hired. The only quantifiable difference between Snyder and Watson is that Watson is successful in his professional role, while Snyder is painfully incompetent.

The NFL made sure the details of Snyder’s actions outlined in the Wilkinson report didn’t see the light of day. So he gets one last (I believe) chance to clean up his legacy and his franchise. Watson may end up completely exonerated from the allegations facing him, in which case I hope Rivera and his front office mates make a run at trading for him. Alternatively, a settlement with his accusers and a few carefully worded statements by the NFL and its lawyers, and Watson may be cleared to play again. In that case, I wouldn’t want Watson on my team any more than I want Snyder running it.

The hypocrisy of coveting Watson while eviscerating Snyder is pathetically transparent. Obviously, one can help you win a championship. The other is objectively among the worst owners in all of professional sports. If you don’t care about their character, admit it. If you only care about wins and losses, admit it. Stop pretending you care about equality and protecting women when you’re really just happy to use the spectacle of their suffering as the necessary leverage to hopefully get a better owner who will lead the franchise back to the glory days.

I’m all the way out on Watson until and unless he’s totally cleared of these allegations, or he owns up to his mistakes, makes amends, and takes his punishment. That may mean we stay in quarterback purgatory. It may also mean the Eagles end up with Watson. I’m okay with that. Some things are bigger than wins and losses.

I wish more of you were with me on this, but at least we can all agree Snyder needs to go. Keep up the energy on that front. And in the mean time, let’s hope none of this gets in the way of Rivera, the culture he’s building for the Washington Football Team, and boys on the field as they try to go have a season. Hail to the Burgundy and Gold.