It’s been just over a week since the NFL and Deshaun Watson agreed to an 11-game suspension and a $5 million fine for the Cleveland Browns quarterback.
However, not everybody thinks this will make him learn a lesson from his actions off the field.
Rita Smith, who helps the NFL on matters of domestic violence and sexual assault, spoke to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com about Watson’s situation. She made it clear that Watson is “playing” people with the way he has answered questions about his behavior.
“I feel like he’s playing us,” Smith said, via Cleveland.com. “He’s saying exactly what he thinks he needs to say to get on the field again. He’s not thinking strategically at all about. ‘Did I cause harm to other people?’ He’s not questioning any of his behaviors at all. He’s absolutely certain from that last statement: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. This is all about people trying to get at me, and I just want to go play ball.’”
Rita then added Watson could still be “a danger to people” moving forward.
“That energy is not good for future reoffending,” she continued. “That that purports to me that he’s still a danger to people, because he’s done absolutely no self-reflection that I can tell. You don’t have that many violations reported from somebody who’s not doing anything wrong. . . . He’s doing something wrong in those [massage] sessions. He’s doing something inappropriate in those [massage] sessions. So he needs to figure out what that is and how he can stop it so that nobody gets hurt in that process.”
Watson will be eligible to return to the Browns for their week 13 matchup with the Houston Texans.
