Embattled quarterback Deshaun Watson won’t be with the Texans when they begin OTAs (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero). Despite everything else going on in Watson’s world, the longtime Houston star still wants to be traded, Pelissero hears. 
Watson’s rift with the Texans was the big storyline to start 2021, with the Panthers and other contenders rushing to the phones. Then, a slew of allegations started to trickle out in the spring. To date, Watson and his attorney have denied wrongdoing in the 20+ cases. Meanwhile, his deposition is set for February of 2022 — after Super Bowl LVI.
Watson could be free to play in the interim, if he’s not parked on the Commissioner’s Exempt List. If he’s cleared to play by the league office, the easiest path to the field would be to try and mend fences with the Texans. For now, GM Nick Caserio isn’t saying much regarding the situation.
“If you want to speculate, you should probably go buy Bitcoin,” Caserio said recently.
Watson, 26 in September, led the league with 4,823 passing yards in 2020 — a new career-high. He also set new personal bests with 33 passing touchdowns and a 70.2% completion rate. Given his ongoing legal situation it’s unclear if any team would actually trade for him right now, or what they’d give up if they would.
Certainly, the compensation would be something less than the earth-shattering mega package they would’ve received a few months ago. Either way, it doesn’t sound like the allegations have done much to alter Watson’s firm stance, and it sure doesn’t seem like he’ll be reporting any time soon. Assuming the two sides don’t reconcile, the Texans have a few options.
They signed Tyrod Taylor, a serviceable veteran bridge guy. They also drafted Davis Mills 67th overall from Stanford, and signed backup journeyman Jeff Driskel.
Sorry dude you torpedoed your trade value by not keeping your meat torpedo in your pants.
Innocent until proven guilty. These are still all just allegations. If it turns out that Watson did rape these women and is convicted of it then 100% he deserves everything coming to him. I still have a hard time believing he did this numerous times and no one came forward until after he got paid and demanded a trade.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 22 times, well…
louwhitakerisahofer • 3 hours ago
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 22 times, well…
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That cuts both ways. it is hard to believe that someone is innocent if 22 women accuse you. But it is also difficult to believe that 22 different women didn’t raise the issue prior to a couple of months ago.
And Grich should get in before Whitaker.
And if I’m correct, the majority, if not all of them are are repped by the same ambulance chaser.
So what ur saying is it’s been conjured up after he demanded a trade to keep him in Houston by torpedoing his trade value? High level espionage there.
I know it sounds crazy, but I think it’s something along those lines. I think the Texans knew about his proclivities and when they realized the situation was beyond repair, they whispered in the right ear and set this whole thing in motion. So, no, I don’t think it’s made up. But, yes, I think Jack Easterby was involved in it coming to light.
qbert, we see this happen all the times, the victims are too afraid to speak up because of the power the abuser holds
What power? He’s a football player, not the POTUS. In today’s day and age the minute anyone speaks up about anything the accused immediately gets fired, cancelled or excommunicated. This is the most perfect time in history to speak out about anything and everyone knows it. That is as an excuse 10-20-30 years ago. Not in 2021 anymore.
@qbert: Innocent until proven guilty is a court of law thing. The court of public opinion can consider him guilty without needing some jury and judge to find him guilty. And knowing that, the NFL can do whatever they want with him within the bounds of the CBA.
Question: was OJ innocent? Was found not guilty by a jury. By your rules, if he’d been an NFL player at the time, you’d have him back out on the field. Ludicrous.
Court of public opinion? Like clueless keyboard warriors? Gotcha. Your OJ reference is confusing, “by your rules you’d have him back out on the field.” Up until 3 years ago, NFL GM’s (or the league itself, for that matter) didn’t give a rip about your off the field issues. In the 2010’s half the Vikings roster was in legal trouble in some capacity, fast forward a few years, same thing different team, the Bengals. You had the Ray Lewis murder, Ray Rice tossin’ his women around the elevator like a pissed off bag boy. The list goes on and on.
Not hard to tell who are the Texans fans here…
It’s not his own trade value, its the Texan’s trade value. Big difference.
He has 0 trade value
Watson will soon be on the NFL commissioner’s exempt list – drawing his full salary – and unable to play for at least a year and perhaps much longer. What team would willingly trade picks and players to Houston (plus tens of $millions in salary) for a guy who isn’t on the field?
He’s un-tradable until Rog makes his decision. Courts are courts, but how hard Goodell comes down will set the deal.
Even if he was a free agent,no team would risk the publicity. Ok,well maybe one team.
Yeah, but that depends on Dak’s recovery…
Id imagine both sides are hoping for the exempt list for this season. No way the Texans trade him without value. They’ll void his guarantees and give him a year to rebound his trade value or just let him sit at home.
I’m sure a trade to a prison football team could be worked out. Not sure what the Texans would get in return though. Maybe some soap-on-a-rope?
10 soups, 2 books of stamps, and an 8″ blade.
I think we’ve all watched enough Law and Order SVU to know that one perp can have dozens of victims that never come forward until years later. Drama imitates life.
Dude is guilty of something. Maybe some of these girls didn’t feel like a victim at first. Maybe they needed those first women to speak up. Strength in numbers vs the it’s just me alone against a superstar NFL player.
Law and Order SVU is hardly an image of any kind of reality.
link to lawandorder.fandom.com
let me just do the work for you
Epstein, Cosby, Weinstein, Darren Sharper, etc.
All real people.
All of whom have nothing to do with a sensationalist drama that offers quite probably the worst portrayal of good policing on television. “Ripped from the headlines” hardly means true to fact. Just read the captions (on a site dedicated to “fandom” of the show, might I add)-“inspired by” means someone wrote a FICTIONAL story based on something that happened. Come on, dude. It’s not a damn documentary.
Not saying that any of this proves that Watson is guilty or innocent, but if you’re using SVU as a basis for what you believe, you should consider that the show has a vested interest in showing only the most sensationalized view of sex crimes that it can. It’s not and should not be considered a reflection of reality. Benson is not a real cop, and if she were, she’d have lost her job years ago. Real life is different, and the cartoonish cases we see on SVU hardly have any bearing on what did or did not happen with Watson. The constant stream of articles will pressure readers into coming to conclusions, but the fact of the matter is that no concrete or trustworthy information will come out before the actual trial, and if you go in thinking that this is a TV drama you might as well not watch. Fact is, we don’t have anything other than lawyers’ statements and an interview done with a reporter, and neither of things offer us anything concrete.
So, yeah, Watson could be innocent. He could be guilty. He probably is somewhere in between fully responsible and not. It’s just silly, shortsighted, and frankly arrogant to assume that any of us have enough information to either defend or convict anyone without a smidgeon of at least partially verified information. It would at least be better than relying on a sensationalized TV show where everyone is guilty built for ratings. Jesus, people, we’re using SVU as a conviction system now? Has there ever been a case where the accused wasn’t guilty on that show? Come on now.
I have a hard time believing these allegations and it does make some sense in a twisted way that someone in the Texan org is fanning the flames. Why is difficult to answer but it comes down to money and power.
The best case scenario for the team is to have Watsons contract nullified and have him so tarnished no other team will touch him, then come back in and offer him a new contract to play a year and reestablish his career with the promise that they would try to trade him to a list of preferred teams.