The NFL’s Deshaun Watson investigation has entered its final stages, but the league has not wrapped up one of its key prongs. The Browns quarterback met with NFL investigators this week in Houston. New information will be presented to the public soon, and the league is expected to seek a second meeting with Watson, Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Watson attorney Rusty Hardin told Cabot the NFL is aiming to end its investigation in June or July. No firm timetable exists. Several of Watson’s accusers spoke with HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel for a piece that will air Tuesday. The women interviewed detail their allegations and reactions to Watson being given a five-year, $230MM fully guaranteed contract despite being embroiled in this controversy.

The league’s investigation will almost certainly wrap up before the 22 women who have accused Watson of sexual assault and/or sexual misconduct have concluded their depositions in his civil trial. That could set up a scenario in which the NFL levies a suspension this summer but leaves the prospect of additional punishment — similar to the league’s 2020 Antonio Brown ban, which was announced in late July of 2020 — coming to pass based on the civil cases. No second punishment occurred in Brown’s case, and he returned to play after his eight-game ban.

Watson has given several civil depositions and will give two more in late June. No depositions will take place between August 1 and March 1, according to Cabot, with both sides agreeing to not proceed during the Browns’ season.

Twenty-four women have accused Watson of these crimes, though two of the accusers are not part of the civil suit. Two Texas grand juries cleared Watson, who awaits the outcome of the civil cases and his NFL fate. The 26-year-old QB is not engaged in settlement talks, Hardin adds.

There will be an important step in the ongoing NFL investigation into Deshaun Watson in the coming days. CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson reports (on Twitter) that league officials will meet with him in Texas this week. 

The news comes not long after the civil suits the quarterback is still facing were amended to include counts of negligence and gross negligence. While it remains to be seen what effect doing so will have on the overall outcome of Watson’s upcoming legal proceedings, it was seen as a victory for the plaintiffs with respect to discovery and a wider range of potential punishments.

The NFL investigation remains, of course, separate from the case, which has on two occasions resulted in no criminal charges being filed. The question of whether or not the 26-year-old violated the league’s Personal Conduct Policy remains unanswered, and this sit-down represents the next step in the investigation. A suspension is still a possibility at this point, though it is widely believed Watson will not land on the Commissioner’s Exempt List.

A league spokesperson said, “We will decline comment as the review is active and ongoing” (Twitter link via NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport). While this is a significant step towards a final disciplinary decision being made, the league still has months between now and the beginning of the season to arrive at that decision. Any trial proceedings resulting from the civil cases, meanwhile, will not take place between August 1 of this year and March 1 of 2023, to avoid overlap with the NFL season.

Two of the 22 women who have filed suit against Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson have amended their claims to include counts of negligence and gross negligence, as Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today reported last month. In addition to creating more grounds for financial recovery, those claims allow the plaintiffs to propound more discovery, and the gross negligence claim carries with it the possibility of punitive damages.

As Schrotenboer noted in a separate piece, almost all of the lawsuits already included counts of civil assault and infliction of emotional distress, and other suits could be amended to include the negligence-based claims as well. Essentially, those claims allege that Watson “knew of his sexual proclivities in massage settings” but did not take steps to prevent those proclivities from manifesting or to warn the plaintiffs of them.

David Ring, a Los Angeles-based attorney who has represented sexual assault victims and whom Schrotenboer consulted for his article, acknowledges that the new claims represent something of a reach (“how does a person negligently have a massage?” Ring wondered). Nonetheless, they have already helped the plaintiffs achieve an important discovery-related victory. The parties were battling over whether Watson should be compelled to list all women that gave him massages since 2019, and the court ruled that he must do just that, as such a list could be relevant to proving Watson’s alleged proclivities.

Shortly after the suits were filed against Watson, the quarterback’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, publicly released a list of 18 other therapists who had sessions with Watson but who had no issues with him. The plaintiffs, though, want to know more about those sessions, along with sessions Watson might have scheduled with women aside from the 18 therapists and 22 plaintiffs. If Watson had sexual relations with them, that could bolster the argument that he routinely scheduled massage sessions with sexual intentions, and it will make the plaintiffs’ claims more believable.

So even if the legal theory behind the amended suits is shaky, the plaintiffs might still be backing Watson into a corner, as Ring and South Texas College of Law Houston professor Kenneth Williams believe. Although plenty of harm has already been done to Watson’s reputation, he was still able to land a historic contract from Cleveland and can begin taking steps towards redemption if he settles these cases quickly and avoids further revelations of (at best) embarrassing and (at worst) predatory behavior.

Per Adam Ferrise of Cleveland.com, the trial of this matter is unlikely to take place before August 1, and the parties have agreed that no trial will be scheduled between August 1 and March 1, 2023, so as to avoid conflict with the football season. As such, if the cases ultimately proceed to trial, there will be no resolution until sometime next year.

None of the lawsuits against Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson will go to trial during the season, Adam Ferrise of the Cleveland Plain Dealer hears. It’s still possible that Watson’s 22 accusers could call him to court, but those trials won’t take place between August 1 of this year and March 1 of 2023, per the agreement struck by the lawyers handling the matter. 

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It remains to be seen whether Watson would face 22 separate trials or one trial to consolidate them all. Watson’s camp would prefer the latter and, based on the previous round of talks, would only consider settling with all 22 accusers at once. Publicly, Watson’s reps say that they’re not looking to settle at all.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has kept the door open to suspension, though Watson is on track to take the field in Week 1 as of this writing.

“The civil cases were in play over the last year,” Goodell said recently. “The only thing that’s changed is the criminal element has been at least resolved, and that was an important element in the context of the Commissioner Exempt List as discussed with the Players Association. So that was an important (decision as it relates to the Commissioner Exempt List).

“If the criminal had proceeded, that more than likely would have triggered the Commissioner Exempt. I think at this point, the civil case in and of itself would not do that. If there’s a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy, that may trigger something, but that more than likely trigger some kind of discipline in some fashion.”

Anticipating a suspension at some juncture, the Browns reduced Watson’s 2022 base salary to $1MM. That’ll significantly limit the hit will face if/when the quarterback is penalized.

Deshaun Watson has a brand new team, but he still has 22 civil lawsuits to face. While other interested clubs wanted Watson to settle those suits before a potential trade, the Browns will not push him to do the same, as Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com writes. 

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“That’s up to them,’’ owner Jimmy Haslam said. “He feels very strongly that he did nothing wrong. We have confidence in Deshaun and his legal team. They’ll make good decisions.”

That’s been the position of Watson’s camp too — the quarterback maintains that his overall innocence and refuses to settle. The Browns — who have furnished Watson with a fully guaranteed $230MM contract — are on board with that plan.

In the meantime, the NFL will hold off on any possible suspension. The league office wants to avoid a situation where they levy a suspension, then have to adjust it later based on new information. Still, their own investigation continues – at least ten of the 22 women have filed suit against Watson have spoken with NFL officials.

Watson’s contract calls for just $1MM in base pay this year, which would limit any fines imposed against him. Most of Watson’s 2022 money has already been delivered / placed in escrow by way of his signing bonus.

While the Browns wait to see how that all shakes out, they’ll work to find a suitable trade for former starter Baker Mayfield.

Two grand juries didn’t criminally charge Deshaun Watson with any crimes, but the Browns’ new quarterback still faces 22 civil lawsuits that will make him subject to discipline. Commissioner Roger Goodell said today that there’s no timetable on potential discipline for the QB, but he did keep the door open for a suspension, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter (on Twitter). Meanwhile, Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com relays that Watson will only be subject to a suspension under the Personal Conduct Policy, meaning the QB won’t land on the Commissioner Exempt List.

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“The civil cases were in play over the last year,” Goodell said (via Williams). “The only thing that’s changed is the criminal element has been at least resolved, and that was an important element in the context of the Commissioner Exempt List as discussed with the Players Association. So that was an important (decision as it relates to the Commissioner Exempt List).

“If the criminal had proceeded, that more than likely would have triggered the Commissioner Exempt. I think at this point, the civil case in and of itself would not do that. If there’s a violation of the Personal Conduct Policy, that may trigger something, but that more than likely trigger some kind of discipline in some fashion.”

Watson still faces 22 civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault. We heard previously that the NFL was unlikely to act on a Watson suspension until his civil trials conclude. The league’s investigation is ongoing. Anticipating a suspension, the Browns previously reduced Watson’s 2022 base salary to $1MM, which will significantly limit the financial penalties the quarterback will face if/once the NFL’s ban is handed down.