Deshaun Watson eliminated the Browns on Wednesday night, and the Panthers on Thursday, and back and forth he went Thursday night and Friday morning over whether he should go to his hometown Falcons or a Saints team that had been in the playoffs the last five years in a row and remained loaded for bear.
After a year away from the NFL, he wanted a familiar place that might make his reentry into the sport smoother, according to a source close to the quarterback. He loved the idea of playing in Atlanta in particular, and the South in general, and the thought of being around the people who cheered for him as he grew up. And yet, there was something else he realized, with the two options in front of him, he wanted more.
He wanted to win Super Bowls. And after spending a full season on the sidelines, as much as he liked the long-term plans of every team he met with, he didn’t want to wait to get to work on all of those things.
The best place for that? A place he’d eliminated—because it was far from home, and because he’d only actually been to Cleveland once, for a rain-soaked, wind-swept, 10–7 Texans loss to the Browns in November 2020. So he instructed his agent, David Mulugheta, to call Browns GM Andrew Berry back. That was midday Friday, and by sundown Watson would be Ohio-bound.
This, of course, isn’t an easy story to write about or discuss, and it shouldn’t be. The allegations against Watson are serious and, even with the grand jury in Texas having decided not to move forward with criminal charges on the nine cases it examined, 22 civil cases of sexual misconduct remain. There are, of course, two reasons why teams put the level of resources into vetting Watson they did over the last year. One is what sort of player he is. The other is how significant the case against him was.
I don’t know where the 22 civil suits go from here. But a number of teams that sunk seven figures into preparing for the mere possibility they’d trade for Watson were standing at the finish line last week with him. And we’re about to take you through how he crossed it with the Browns.
