2:59pm: Peter Harvey, a former New Jersey Attorney General, will hear the league’s Watson appeal. Goodell had the power to hear the appeal himself, but the longtime commissioner has appointed Harvey, who is now a partner at the New York-based Paterson Belknap firm. The NFL’s statement (via NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo, on Twitter) indicates Harvey has “deep expertise in criminal law, including domestic violence and sexual assault.” Harvey also helped implement the NFL’s personal conduct policy, Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com notes.
10:23am: It came out yesterday that, as many around the NFL had been hoping and expecting, the league will appeal the six-game suspension handed down to Deshaun Watson. Further details have emerged regarding the specifics of the NFL’s options to proceed and some of their intended outcomes.
One of the central questions is the matter of who will hear the league’s appeal. Commissioner Roger Goodell has 
the option to oversee the matter personally, or have an appointee do so. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that Goodell will delegate to “someone not with the league office” (Twitter link). The NFL has faced public pressure to file an appeal, but also had to weigh that against the reality that doing so would appear to undermine the ruling of retired judge Sue L. Robinson, the independent third party authorized under the new CBA to render a decision.
As has been known for some time, the league will be using the appeal as another attempt to sideline the Browns QB for at least one season. Part of the incentive to do so, as noted by CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones (on Twitter), is the fact that Watson’s deal is set to pay him the league minimum (thus severely lessening the financial penalty of a suspension) and his “lack of remorse.” Watson’s contract isn’t unique amongst other Browns stars in that regard, but it has understandably been considered a “sticking point” from the league’s perspective.
Increasing the six-game suspension to an indefinite one, but not including a fine remains one outcome of a successful appeal, per Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson (Twitter link). Alternatively, the league could aim for a ban of less than one season; in that scenario, a fine would come into play. In any event, Robinson adds that a central goal of the NFL is to avoid Watson being eligible in time for the Browns’ Week 12 game against the Texans, which will be played in Houston.
Of course, any action which increases the punishment levied against Watson could lead to the matter being taken to federal court by the NFLPA. The threat of that action could lead to a revival of settlement talks, per Tom Pelissero of NFL Network (video link). He adds, however, that the league would likely view “a substantial number of games” in addition to “a significant fine” as the starting point for any negotiations.
As Pelissero notes, an indefinite ban would render Watson ineligible to participate in the remainder of training camp and the preseason, so any further legal action in his defense would be expedited by a heavier suspension. In any event, there is more to come in this saga.
Interesting that, though it obviously remains to be seen how this plays out, the structure of the Watson contract intended to skirt consequences may actually come back to bite him further. It looks like the league is not happy about that, understandably so. If he was getting paid this year the NFL might not be seeking a ban at least a year.
The problem with suspending for the entire year is that his contract tolls and begins next year. A year instead of 12 games actually helps the Browns because they won’t lose a year of control. Instead of his contract running from 2022-2026, it’ll run from 2023-2027
He’ll be washed anyways.
At 26 or 27? The Browns beat writers are saying that Watson looks like he’s been playing everyday. The guy is super talented
If there is a city of beat writers that one should not trust when it comes to NFL QB evaluations, it’s the Cleveland Browns beat writers.
Says Rosie. I don’t a dude with a girls name knowing anything about football.
You don’t know anything about football or life. Walk into on coming traffic please
link to edx.org
Yeah, it takes a special kind of talent for 66 people to accuse you of something.
If he gets suspended for a year or more though, and then goes to court and gets to play via an injunction ala Brady, wouldn’t the contract start this year like normal though? Admittedly I’m not sure but I don’t see how it wouldn’t. And I’m assuming that’s the route he’ll go if that happens. Then he’ll really be screwed because he’ll be playing out the cheap year and kicking his suspension into the actual paid years. Interesting dilema.
No it doesn’t. Where did you see this? Suspensions don’t stop contracts from starting or accruing time.
I’ve posted the link twice. If Watson doesn’t play any games, his contract tolls. If he plays games, it doesn’t
So play him every game and he doesn’t get paid.
Jjd002….link to cbssports.com
Scroll down to the end of the article. I accept your admission of being wrong. Never question me son. Ever.
Nothing will help the Browns. They self destruct all the time.
They were 12-6 in 2020 and almost made the playoffs last year with a banged up average quarterback and hit by covid probably as bad as anyone
And what did they do?
They’ve never been good. Go look at their weak schedule any year they have a winning record.
There’s no problem suspending him for a year or more. That’s what he deserves at the minimum. If that creates a problem for the inept Browns, so be it. They should know better, but they never do.
He’s 26 and he’s signed for 5 years.
So what?
Getting Watson was never a one year deal. Quarterbacks as good as him and as young as him don’t become available very often, if ever. I can’t ever remember a quarterback that has made the pro bowl in 3 of his first 4 years getting traded or going free agency. Brady was 43. Wilson is 34. Ryan is 38.
Do you have a job or just post here all day about your lover Watson?
It’s Watsons PR guy
Or maybe his boyfriend. Can’t really tell the difference with Watson. He probably jerked him off and had to hire Brownsbacker before he was sued.
No I don’t have a job. I retired young. As for the posts, you will only find me mostly posting on this topic. Some people post on every article and even the baseball site.
Please allow me to translate:
I am unemployable and live in my Mom’s basement. As for my posts, they are worth even less than I am, somehow. Some people are much more knowledgeable than I am and post about various topics because they are able to think about more than one thing, unlike me, who can only think about my undying love for Deshaun Watson.
Don’t be jealous Alvin
Even if I were the jealous type, I wouldn’t be jealous of you. What’s there to envy? A guy who doesn’t know a thing about football and a guy who champions a serial sexual abuser of women? Pass, just like the Browns should have done on Watson.
My looks and body
You look like a cave troll.
Sure I do. I know that I look great, especially for my age. I’m trying to be humble
What the flip are you talking about? Who cares how long the contract is?
QB’S also usually don’t come with 20+ sexual abuse allegations.
He got traded because he’s a head case, and he’ll fit perfectly in the mess that is the Browns.
Brady won a SB. ANOTHER one. How many does Watson have?
The last Watson post is up to 185 comments. I believe that’s the most I’ve ever seen on PFR! Will this one catch it?
No, because this isn’t headline news like the other one. Additionally, in order to have that many comments, you need at least a few long arguments to build up numbers
Many around the league are hoping? Really?
There is always more with this guy, when is it going to end!!! As Judge Judy says, put a Period!!!! after it!
It should undermine the judge. If a person of authority makes a bad call, it’s ok to admit it and go against them.
The point being, why even bother appointing an impartial decision maker if you’re just going to overrule a finding you don’t agree with anyway?
It’s called appealing the length of the suspension, which both sides agreed to in the CBA. And the league isn’t overruling the arbitrator. If they were, the suspension of a year would already be announced and we’d be talking ad nauseam about it.
Why have an appellate court system if all the judges that hear cases are impartial??? Because sometimes they just get it wrong or interpret case law or precedent differently. Same thing in this case.
The decision to suspend him was a good one. The length of the punishment and no fine was a poor one. This is the process the NFLPA agreed to so if they don’t like it, too bad.
No matter what happens, he’s coming back and he’ll be more determined than ever
It won’t matter because he’ll be on the Browns.
Har, har, har. Your so funny. “…on the Browns” comments were funny when chrome dome Jackson was going 1-31, but just like your opinions, they passed their expiration date and there’s nothing fresh here.
I mean the browns still suck and haven’t actually done anything. I bet you are one of those browns fans that listens to GMFB and feels like the Browns are a SB contender? Well… nobody else in the NFL does
Actually with Watson, a lot of people do. You just don’t know football. A lot of people on here are just fantasy football fans and don’t know about lineman. You probably only know 4 or 5 players on each team
Only you and all your alts think this.
Sounds like you might know a lot about the tight ends on the team.
Are you on here to find a guy? Seems like it to me. You love talking gay stuff
What have the Browns won ever? They are the laughing stock of the league for 50years. Oh well except the years when they left because the owners knew they’d never win anything in Cleveland. And once they left that town the franchise went and won a few Super Bowls.
It is funny because it is true. The Browns can’t help themselves. Every single time it looks like they are turning the corner, they shoot themselves in the foot. This time it will be trying to sink the QB that actually got you to, and won a playoff game for the first time in what seems like a century, and then you trade him away to pick up a guy that assaulted more women then you have fingers and toes. He’s already proven that when things don’t go his way he will accuse the front office of racism and blame everyone but himself and then demand a trade. This…will….blow up in the Browns faces.
You mean the 26th rated quarterback last year? He said he wants to play the rest of his career in Cleveland. Their roster is stacked. Just was missing a pro bowl quarterback that’s only 26. This bothers you because your team is not so good
I don’t have a team. That makes me right on par with Cleveland.
Go get Jimmy G. Use him until you can’t. He will win more games than not.
“Harvey has “deep expertise in criminal law, including domestic violence and sexual assault.”
This makes NO sense.
If you just want to view this through a legal lens, then Robinson already made the “right” call. The CBA spells out an absurdly low punishment and she went by the letter of the law, as judges (should) do.
The ONLY reason to appeal the verdict is to widen the lens beyond the law to the integrity and reputation of the league. That is the commissioner’s job.
Robinson’s job was to judge the damage Watson did to the women.
Goodell’s job is to prevent Watson from doing damage to the NFL. That obligation gives him every justification needed to suspend Watson indefinitely.
Why is he farming out his job? Just step up, be the boss and send Watson home.
Then why were we waiting for a month on her decision on punishment? Getting Watson suspended longer will make war with the NFLPA. They have a very strong union, as does professional sports in general and getting a contract or anything done will be problematic.
And the PA will lose in court just like they have every other time. It’s in the CBA that the PA agreed too. If you don’t like it you should have negotiated a better deal.
Is that why the NFLPA agreed to this current process Watson is going through. Because they’re very strong?
They’re not going to like this. Trust me, the union is strong.
Why should I trust you? Who are you? Some little peon. Who cares if the union likes it? This is what they agreed to. Are that that stupid? Apparently you must be part of it, because yes, it is.
@forwhomjoshbelltolled / “Goodell’s job is to prevent Watson from doing damage to the NFL. That obligation gives him every justification needed to suspend Watson indefinitely”.
Apparently, Goodell’s job doesn’t require him to prevent owners from doing damage to the NFL though. No action against Kraft or Snyder is going to work against him in his appeal to punish Watson severely.
He works for the owners.
If he works for the owners, why is his boss Ross letting Goodell take 2 draft picks away? Try suspending your boss
Who pays his salary? Who votes if he stays or goes?
I am my own boss, so I would never suspend myself.
I’m curious about how many sponsors has D.Watson lost. How much money he’s paying out for his legal team? How much money did he pay to the women to keep quiet. NFLPA put this in the latest contract between the players and owners in 2020. Are the players in this NFL are going to back his play? He said in the passed he was innocent of any wrong doings before all this. Also he wouldn’t pay out any money to women suing him. How can anyone trust his word anymore? The arbitrator ruled he broke 3 major rules and gave him 6 games suspension. The NFL can change this ruling by the of the contract between players and owners contract in 2020. Watson also gave the NFL a Big Blackeye! Hope they suspended him for life. He also a sexual predator.
Make sure to wear your Jackson Carmen and Joe Mixon jerseys
I don’t wear the name of any other man on my back.
Was I referring to you? You must be new at this Alvin
I don’t care who you were referring to, I speak whenever I want to. I don’t need your permission. You must be new at this Sewagebackup.
I would go with the obvious repeat/habitual behavior argument in response to comparing Watson to Mixon/Rice/etc; but I prefer to circle back to my original thought when this all hit the headlines: entirely too convenient to be remotely coincidental
Watson gets upset that Hopkins is traded and isn’t shy stating he wants out & will sit out until he’s traded AND he actually follows through with his threat
***incoming coincidence***
Attorney Tony Buzzbee starts talking to the press about sexual harassment allegations against Watson
To enhance the “coincidence level”, Buzzbee lives less than a football field away from the McNairs … the owners of the Houston Texans
… but don’t let any of that distract you from the grand poobah of coincidences: Houston had been providing Watson with NDAs
tl/dr:
Houston knew and fed that knowledge & information to Buzzbee in retaliation against Watson
NOTE:
I’m not defending Watson; not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m saying this has all played too conveniently to be coincidence … AND … at best, Houston should be subject to punishment for condonation, if not outright facilitation of any allegations against Watson.
I Have Spoken
lol
PS: I forgot to add how repugnant I find Buzzbee for using the media as a courtroom. He’s ethically barren
I’ll take a guy that feels up 24 massage therapists to a guy that admitted to having sex with a 15 year old when he was in college. She said she was raped.
You’ve never been anything less than crystal clear this has always been your perspective.
As for that sonic boom you heard?
It was the point of my post going over your head
but it’s all good; I’m not one of those who needs everyone to agree with me … or anyone for that matter
So you think it’s ok? Wow
The irony is strong with you.
I’ll take the guy that hasn’t done either of those things. The coping you have is as ridiculous as you and all your posts are.
Wah. You know what would have solved all of this? Watson being an actual human being and not a disgusting piece of filth.
You don’t find it ironic that a Bengal fan has the guts to call for a lifetime ban for Watson yet root for his team? That’s as bad as all the Steeler fans complaining about Watson when their quarterback did worse
Nope. Because I don’t care about those posters or their teams. I am doing what everyone should and focus on Watson because he’s the subject here, nothing else. What are you 4? “Sure, what I did was unprecedented, I definitely did it all, I lied about it, and I showed no remorse, but so and so did this, so why should I even get a punishment even, no fairsies!”
The NFL desperately needs to have a tiered system of violations and preset punishments for each tier. This “I’ll make up whatever punishment I want” is unbelievably controversial and needs to go away. Yes, Watson deserves punishment. It just shouldn’t be made up.
It is what the players union agreed to, so apparently they don’t care about it as much as you do.
Even if they had done so, I doubt very seriously they’d have an exact stipulation for, “If you sexually abuse 20+ women…”
This is unprecedented and thus, so is the suspension for it. It is his fault alone that he put himself and the NFL in this position, nobody else’s.
We can only hope that slime balls like this suffer a career-ending injury on their first play from scrimmage.
– Waiting for this site’s biggest troll to weigh in –
Says the guy with a Roethlisberger jersey
Says the guy with a Jim Brown jersey, now there’s a guy that knows how to treat a lady,
I don’t buy jerseys. I’m an adult. I’d rather buy a bottle of Polo Blue
Th 90’s called, they want their meme back. Then they realized you had it and said, “Never mind, he can keep it. We don’t want anything he’s touched.”
7 games and a 250M dollar fine.
How’s this for timing:
“The American Massage Therapy Association will hold its annual conference at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland later this month in the shadows of First Energy Stadium”
Deshaun already licking his chops, it’ll be like holding an AA meeting next door toa brewery.
“I wasn’t looking for a massage, honest. See, I am thinking about my career after football and I want to learn how to massage men the proper way. I am getting tutoring and mentoring in the field of massage therapy. I hope this journey leads to a very happy ending.”