The Hypocrisy of the NFL and the Deshaun Watson Case
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; a NFL player is involved in some sort of civil suit, domestic violence, or sexual assault allegation case. The NFL now must save face and attempt to win the court of public opinion by handing down a punishment that is deemed plausible amongst the majority population. However, in so doing this the NFL fails miserably because the punishment that they came up with did not seem to fit the criteria for allegations surrounding the player according to the general public. Well this is what occurred in the case involving Deshaun Watson, but let me explain how this case now begins to differ. And it involves a particular judge.
The concept of using independent arbitrators is nothing new when it comes to assisting the NFL in levying suspensions on players. Where the Deshaun Case differs is that the judge that was used as an arbitrator in this case had no experience in conducting rulings with professional franchises, was completely independent of the NFL and NFLPA, and specialized in forensics. All of this was done to maintain an unbiased ruling on the case. Everything seemed like the NFL was taking the right steps in handling these type of unfortunately pervasive situations that they would find themselves in, that was all until the ruling from this specific judge came back.
This particular judge would rule that due to Deshaun Watson missing the entirety of the previous season, the lack of precedent created by the NFL in rulings on cases such as this, and the amount of women that chose to settle in court coupled with the lack of remorse and contrition that appeared to be shown by Deshaun Watson, a six game suspension was warranted for the quarterback. Once this ruling reached the public, it automatically received criticism for it’s leniency. It is safe to say that the NFL did not expect two things to happen here; 1. the ruling on Watson’s suspension to be so “light” and 2. to receive such fervent backlash from the general public in response to the suspension. This is apparent because of the NFL’s timing and response to the ruling.
Once the ruling was handed down by the judge, it took the NFL a total of six days to respond and say that they would hire a third party to conduct the ruling on the suspension in order to have it increase. The reason this response took so long was because the NFL wanted to see how this suspension length would hold up in the court of public opinion. Once they saw how divisive the length of the suspension was, then they realized that they needed to hire a third party to increase the length of the suspension. This is so because if the reason for disagreement with the length of the suspension was solely based on the idea that they did not feel the length of the suspension did not give full retribution for the actions of Deshaun Watson, they would have appealed the ruling right away. Instead, the NFL taking six days to respond to the ruling shows that they wanted to see how the ruling would hold up first in the court of public opinion before making any decisions. However, the NFL’s constant need to appease the general public and attempt to save face wound up shedding light on the hypocrisy that surrounds the NFL.
The entire purpose of hiring the judge that they hired (mind you she was a female judge which played a factor in their decision) was to show impartiality on this case. However, by hiring a third party to overturn the ruling shows the arrogance and lack of self awareness on behalf of the NFL to show that they don’t believe a qualified professional who specialized in these forensic cases for the entirety of her career did not provide what they felt to be a justifiable ruling, despite it coming from a qualified professional as previously stated. That action shows that the NFL believes their thought process and rationale of thinking is the only correct one, and anyone who doesn’t fit their agenda or mission they are trying to accomplish is not credible and no longer a viable source.
Ultimately, the biggest take away from the entire Deshaun Watson case is that the NFL is far more worried about being favored in the court of public opinion opposed to finding true, unbiased justice despite what they say the shield represents. Oh, the hypocrisy..
