CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS

Despite the smokescreens, there's much more to the Watson settlements than meets the eye

Texans Deshaun Watson
So where do we stand now with the matter of Deshaun Watson? Composite image by Jack Brame.
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After 16 months of insisting that he wouldn’t settle out of court with an ever-increasing number of women accusing him of sexual misconduct – “all I want is my good name back” - Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson suddenly and surprisingly decided to pay off the women to drop their civil lawsuits against him on Tuesday.

Well 20 of the 24 women, anyway.

“We are working through the paperwork related to the settlements. Once we have done so, those particular cases will be dismissed. The terms and amounts of the settlements are confidential,” said Tony Buzbee, the attorney representing Watson’s accusers.

Analysts say by settling most of the cases Watson, while not admitting guilt, Watson took a positive, major step toward getting his football career back on track. He sat out the entire 2021 season when he was a member of the Houston Texans.

And perhaps that’s the most stunning aspect of the entire Deshaun Watson scandal. That settling 20 of 24 lawsuits claiming sexual misconduct is a major step toward, if not redemption, at least getting his life moving forward.

What about the four cases alleging serious and disgusting sexual misbehavior pending in the legal system? Imagine if we didn’t know that at one time there were 24 similar allegations against him – and news broke that four different women accused Watson of unwanted, aggressive sexual acts. We’d be horrified. If the four women were telling the truth, we’d be talking about a sexual predator on the loose.

But now that Watson has settled with 20 of his 24 accusers, we’re practically considering the remaining cases as “only four.”

Do you hear yourself talking? Only 4? The only good thing about 4 … is 24.

So where do we stand now with the matter of Deshaun Watson?

It’s possible that the remaining four holdout accusers will agree to accept a settlement to avoid rolling the dice in a trial that won’t reach court until next year. Now that the First National Bank of Deshaun Watson is open for business, hard negotiations to wipe the remaining four cases off the docket can begin.

While the 20 settlements already reached are confidential, that’s not stopping fans and analysts from guessing how much Watson paid the women. And let’s not forget Buzbee, who we can assume will get a big chunk of change for his work. Considering that previous reports show that Watson offered $100,000 to the women last year, that is a reasonable starting point for the bidding now.

I spoke with one attorney with knowledge of the Watson case. He believes the women will be paid between $100,000 and $200,000 depending on the level of their accusations.

If I were sitting in the audience at the Price is Right, I’d be shouting “higher!” My guess: up to $500,000 each, paid in installments. Let’s crunch the numbers, 20 times half a million equals $10 million. Watson is scheduled to earn $230 million, fully guaranteed, over the next five years from the Browns. He can afford it. It’s an accuser’s market.

If the other four don’t settle, the cases eventually will go to court, and the women could lose. It’s in the financial interest of both sides to settle. So let’s throw another $2 million on the fire.

The NFL already says that Tuesday’s announced settlement with 20 of the accusers won’t affect any punishment, if any, the league hands down for Watson. Most in the media are guessing a six-game suspension on the low end, up to another year on the sidelines for Watson on the high end.

Again, I’m screaming “higher!” Technically higher. The last thing the NFL wants is to announce a punishment and later more women come forward with accusations of sexual misbehavior. Or Watson continues to solicit non-NFL affiliated masseuses on Instagram and acts inappropriately. While experts think Buzbee may be “out of the Deshaun Watson business,” there’s nothing to stop other lawyers to hop aboard the Watson money train. It’s a headache the NFL doesn’t need, especially in light of other punishments the league has handed down that now seem light.

My guess is that the NFL will suspend Watson indefinitely with an agreement to review the matter in one year. If there are no more serious and credible accusations, no additional lawsuits, no other concerns, then Watson will be OK’d to play the 2024 season.

No matter how this plays out in the future, there is plenty of wreckage left behind. Watson is now a broken brand. It’s estimated that he once had upwards of $10 million in product endorsements. It’s difficult to imagine that any company would want to be in the Deshaun Watson business now.

The Cleveland Browns, while relieved that Watson is on the road to playing for them at some point in the future, look like a cutthroat team willing to trade its soul for victories. When announcing their acquisition of Watson, team officials said they did extensive and thorough investigation into Watson’s character and legal issues. Not too many are buying that.

The Texans, while not accused of being pimps or accomplices for Watson, do appear to be enablers or they looked the other way during Watson’s masseuse spree.

Local media in Cleveland and Houston won’t be nominated for any Pulitzers for their investigation into the Watson case. It took the New York Times to lower the boom on Watson, that he solicited 66 women, not all of them licensed masseuses in Texas, over 17 months – not the 45 women over five years as Watson admitted to – to work on him, some of the massages in a hotel room paid for by the Texans.

Is the whole sordid case coming to an end? Let’s see if the NFL decides to punish Watson. Let’s see if more women come forward with accusations against Watson. Let’s see if the four remaining women accept a settlement.

As the great American philosopher Yogi Berra once said, it ain’t over till it’s over. And it ain’t over yet.

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Houston defeats TCU, 60-45. Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images.

Kelvin Sampson knows how to win a Big 12 Tournament, leading Oklahoma to three straight titles in the early 2000s.

He has Houston two wins away from its own.

The Cougars ramped up their suffocating defense on TCU, Emanuel Sharp had 14 points and Big 12 player of the year Jamal Shead scored 12, and the No. 1 team in the nation rolled to a 60-45 victory on Thursday in the quarterfinal round of its first tournament in its new league.

“They're all good. All the teams are really good,” said Sampson, whose team was beaten soundly on the boards by the bigger Horned Frogs yet still won with ease. “You win by 15, you move on to the next one, man.”

In this case No. 25 Texas Tech, which romped to a victory over No. 20 BYU earlier in the day.

“Texas Tech is good enough to beat us,” Sampson said. “We're going to have to play a lot better than we did today.”

Hard to imagine it on the defensive end, where the No. 1 seed Cougars (29-3) held eighth-seeded TCU without a point for nearly 10 minutes to start the game and was never threatened the rest of the way in winning its 10th consecutive game.

Micah Peavy had 13 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Horned Frogs (21-12). Leading scorer Emanuel Miller followed up his 26-point performance in a second-round win over Oklahoma by scoring just three points on 1-for-10 shooting.

TCU wound up going 17 of 73 from the field (23.3%) and 2 of 20 from beyond the 3-point arc.

“It wasn't our day to make shots,” Horned Frogs coach Jamie Dixon said. “I don't know how many were tough shots. I thought there were layups, we had a couple of kickout 3s off rebounds. It's probably something to do with them, because you can't take away from what they've done game after game. Their numbers are off the charts.”

Longtime rivals in the old Southwest Conference, the Cougars and Horned Frogs were meeting for the first time in the Big 12 Tournament — otherwise known as a neutral floor, where Houston had never lost in eight other games with TCU.

The Cougars never left a doubt that it would be nine.

Fresh off a 30-point blowout of Kansas, the regular-season Big 12 champs scored the first 16 points of the game, shutting down Dixon's team with the kind of in-your-shorts defense that has become the Cougars' hallmark over the years.

TCU missed its first 16 field-goal attempts and did not score until Peavy's bucket with 10:25 left in the first half.

“That's a whole other level of not making shots,” Dixon said.

Even when Houston went through its own offensive dry spell in the first half, it continually hounded the Horned Frogs. They were 3 for 23 with six turnovers at one point, and during one possession, they missed four consecutive shots at the rim.

TCU trailed 31-15 at halftime, missed its first eight shots of the second half and never threatened the rest of the way.

“The past four years I've been here,” Shead said, “we've approached every game the same. We said at the beginning of the year the Big 12 was a lot harder competition at a consistent level, but our preparation is usually the same. It's just about going out there and executing what we work on.”

UP NEXT

TCU should be safely in the NCAA Tournament field for the third consecutive year.

Houston routed the Red Raiders 77-54 in January, when Shead poured in 29 points in the win.

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