NFL Now Investigating Latest Deshaun Watson Accusation; Exempt List Not Currently Considered

The NFL is now investigating a new legal filing against Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson accusing him of sexual assault, but there are no plans at this time to place him on the Commissioner’s Exempt List. The Browns already have one player on the list stemming from criminal charges. Watson has never faced criminal charges, but this is now his 27th lawsuit accusing him of sexual misconduct.

Watson served an 11-game suspension at the start of the 2022 season stemming from the first couple dozen lawsuits. The NFL and NFLPA used an independent arbitrator to work out the suspension agreement, which included a compromise that he would face no further discipline for actions reasonably known to him during the same time period of “the same or substantially similar” nature.

The current lawsuit does contain some variations that are worth exploring. The previous allegations stemmed from Watson hiring massage therapists to give him a massage, and in most cases, the level of sexual misconduct did not surpass exposure of genitalia.

The current complainant accuses Watson of date rape, however. He did not employ her, but rather took her out in a romantic context. She accuses him of forcing her to give him a massage while he was nude before ultimately raping her for several minutes. She ultimately had to force herself free, threatening him with a heavy object before he fled.

All of this evidently occurred before they even went out, preceded by him expressing anger over not being able to find her apartment. She accuses Watson of disrobing while he waited for her in the bathroom to finish getting ready.

According to Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com, the same person who led the league’s initial investigations into the accusations against Deshaun Watson is investigation the latest accusation. Ultimately, her job is to determine whether the new accusation merits further discipline.

Essentially, does this fall under a new banner and qualify as being of a “substantially different” nature? Rather than a professional in his employ, this was a potential romantic partner. Rather than, most frequently, acts of indecent exposure, Watson is accused of penetrative rape. The context is different, and the severity is much greater.

Even if the league determines that the nature of the allegation qualifies as a new category, that is only the first step of the process. This is merely an allegation against Deshaun Watson, and there is no mention of any corroborating evidence.

Perhaps the woman has text messages and phone records and things of that nature, but we don’t know that. Cabot quotes her attorney, Tony Buzbee (who handled the other women’s cases), as saying that he has represented her case for nearly a year. He has received mostly silence from Watson’s camp over the past 10 months, prompting the lawsuit. The alleged incident occurred in October 2020, within the timeframe of his Kraftian massages.