I've been reading a lot of tweets related to the recent NYT / Jenny Vrentas story.
There really are a lot of people who seem to just want to look the other way, give Watson a pass, especially the Browns of course. Yet this guy really represents the worst case behavior a massage therapist can face. It's extremely traumatizing from them. Many say they left the business because of their interactions with this one guy.
I'm sure they get asked for happy endings all the time, but having this guy absolutely insist that he get off as a part of the massage is not just upsetting, it's traumatizing. The consent they give is for a massage, not for sex. There is already a male-female power gradient to deal with, then the superstar NFL player vs ordinary person power gradient, and the Vrentas piece showed the employer-employee power gradient was at work too. He made the women sign NDAs provided by the Texans. In the end the women were just overpowered. If they didn't consent, he took matters into his own hands and still got his happy ending.
The Browns move is so cynical. They count on the fact that the average person won't want to dig into the details. If they do, how can you justify 66 different massage therapists? Clearly you aren't looking for a good massage, because if you were, you'd pick the best one or two or three and just use them. And for Watson to go from no sex happened to now three "consentual" acts is a crack in the armor. Were you there for a massage, or for sex?
In the end, the Browns will probably still win out. I doubt the suspension will be for more than a year. As mentioned, RLKAG and he got nothing. So, it'll be like a NBA team tanking. This season will be a write off. The loss of draft picks will be a bit of a buzz kill, but within 2-3 years it'll be as if nothing happened. Given the trajectory of the Browns, if they can be on the way up two seasons from now, they'll be OK with the way things went down. NBA tanking takes longer than that.
The Browns made the calculations and were OK with doing the deal they did. They don't care about their reputation, nor that they probably won't be able to find anyone to be the team's massage therapist while Watson is on the team. Adam Shefter's tweet shows how willing the NFL insider community is to give it all a pass. They know their back is covered.
Yet they have a ticking time bomb on their hands. The civil trials are going to be a
show for them. The dude has a strong MO of how he gets off, sooner or later he'll return to form. What female Browns employee will ever want to be in a room alone with him? It could all blow up in their faces. If so, they deserve it.