Let’s talk about karma for a moment.
Karma is vicious. It is unrelenting. It’s ancient. It does not forget. It has a memory like an elephant and keeps lists like St. Nick. It gets power from suns and moons and stupid people. It sinks empires and best laid plans. Mess with karma and it will get you. Laugh at karma and it will get you. Treat karma with a lack of respect and it will get you.
Welcome to karma, Deshaun Watson.
Welcome to karma, Cleveland Browns.
Oh, yes, karma has been waiting for you, Mr. Watson. It’s been patient, Browns, watching closely as the guy you signed, the guy you knew was accused of multiple acts of sexual misconduct, has clearly disintegrated under the weight of his own alleged grossness. Watson and the Browns aren’t just being hoisted on their own petard, they are being blasted by the omnipresence of karma, which smiles at them both, and laughs: did you really think you could escape me?
NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.
The Browns’ signing of Watson, seeped in arrogance, will now go down as perhaps the worst signing in the history of the NFL. It is also possibly the worst signing in the modern history of American professional sports.
Why? The team sent the Texans six draft picks, including three first rounders, and signed Watson to a $230 million guaranteed contract. The salary cap ramifications are problematic for the team if they release Watson.
The bigger issue are the draft picks. In 2022, the Browns sent Houston their 2022, 2023, and 2024 first round picks, among others. Cleveland’s theory of the case is that Watson would be the kind of change agent to take the Browns to Super Bowls and those picks would become irrelevant.
That of course hasn’t come close to happening. Meanwhile, those first rounders can be the lifeblood of a franchise. There’s no guarantee the Browns would have found good players but high picks like that increases the odds.
This was all avoidable. Owner Jimmy Haslam, before signing Watson, said the Browns did extensive checks into Watson’s background and the franchise felt comfortable signing him. At that point Watson was facing 22 civil lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct and sexual assault.
That many lawsuits wasn’t just a red flag; it signaled the possibility that Watson was beyond troubled. The Browns said they had done their due diligence on Watson but there was no amount of true diligence the team could really do. The franchise soaked itself in the pretense of knowing what it was doing when what they were doing was wholly unpredictable.
They dared karma.
Haslam even brought in his wife to try and sell the public on Watson.
‘I know when I was brought in after the season was over,’ Dee Haslam said. ‘I was included in the conversation of looking at our whole roster and particularly the quarterback position. As I said in my opening remarks, this was really hard. This was a journey that I had to get comfortable with, and I got comfortable with it the more people we talked to about Deshaun as a person and then I got more comfortable meeting Deshaun and having those conversations.’
There were so many things that could have gone wrong, and they all did, including an 11-game suspension for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. But one of the biggest was something the Browns apparently didn’t think about.
If you look at what’s happening to Watson, he has wilted under the pressure of all these accusations. No human being would be able to play the high wire act that is NFL quarterback while simultaneously fighting these lawsuits. No one, holding any type of job, could function properly under this type of legal pressure.
Not to mention Watson was recently sued yet again. That lawsuit was settled but it was the 27th lawsuit filed against him alleging sexual misconduct.
That’s 27 lawsuits.
Watson has failed to reach 200 passing yards in five straight games. It’s the longest stretch of his career. It’s been a total disaster.
Some of us do not believe in God. We do not believe in religion. We believe in a universe that has powers and abilities that humans do not yet fully understand. One of those powers is karma.
It has enveloped Watson and the Browns. They deserve it.
