Smith: NFL allows Deshaun Watson to keep winning

Especially when you quit on your last team after signing a massive contract extension and were promised a record-setting $230 million to become Cleveland’s latest quarterback.

Especially when you’re Deshaun Watson and you keep winning and winning and winning, partly because the NFL’s “legal system” continues to be an annual mess.

Atlanta wide receiver Calvin Ridley was suspended for the entire 2022 season for gambling on games.

Then-New England QB Tom Brady was suspended for four games during the Deflategate controversy, which looks flimsier than ever seven years after the fact.

Former Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins was recently suspended six games for a PED violation. 

A full season for Ridley?

Six games for Hopkins?

Six games for Watson?

What???

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As much as the above can be conveniently explained away, it still doesn’t make sense in the real world.

Watson is the only one who’s been in the middle of lawsuits and settlements, and lawsuits and settlements … and more lawsuits and settlements since March 2021. The NFL was also pushing for an indefinite suspension for the former Texans QB.

Now, he’s set to miss just six games — per an arbitrator’s recommendation, which can still be appealed by the NFL  —  and receive almost his entire $230 million payday. 

What an embarrassing mess for an all-powerful league that has struggled for years to rule with anything resembling fairness and evenness.

There’s still time for commissioner Roger Goodell to fix this. He once served as judge, jury and executioner in pro football. At one point, it appeared that Goodell had learned something from the NFL’s Ray Rice disaster. Will Goodell do what arbitrator Sue Robinson did not?

Some have pushed the idea that Watson served a theoretical full-season suspension last year when he didn’t play for the Texans. 

“Some” literally have no idea what they’re talking about.

Watson refused to play for the rebuilding Texans, insisting that he was too good for Houston’s NFL team. He was still paid $10 million to do nothing, while the Texans suffered through a 4-13 campaign and constant controversy. 

That’s a one-year suspension? Please. 

Watson got off easy again on Monday morning. His side won. He’s probably smiling somewhere, feeling untouchable and invincible. 

He gets to be the Browns’ starting QB this season.

He gets to keep practicing and wearing a pro uniform and adding to his personal legacy. 

He’s back in the NFL, after receiving $10 million in 2021 to do nothing, forcing his way out of Houston and then receiving a record contract to represent Cleveland. 

Six games?

That’s nothing when you’ve been promised $230 million to be the new, long-term franchise face of the Browns.

That’s nothing when you’re still set to play 11 games this season, with a Week 13 contest against the Texans inside a simmering NRG Stadium still on Watson’s personal calendar.

That’s nothing when you recall all the stories and accusations and lawsuits and settlements.

Watson keeps winning.

The NFL loses. Again.