The Deshaun Show

I missed the Deshaun Watson unveiling in Cleveland the other day, which is just as well. I've seen enough stagecraft and farce in my time.

Later I watched some video of it, and it was exactly the duck-and-coverfest witnesses described. There stood Deshaun, looking all respectable in a conservative suit and orange tie. There stood Cleveland GM Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski on either side of him, listening as Deshaun said over and over that he never-ever-ever has assaulted any woman in his entire life.

He said it once. He said it again when asked if that meant he thinks the 22 massage therapists who've filed civil suits for sexual misconduct are all lying. He said it again when asked why he's employed 40 different massage therapists over the years.

It was his fallback non-answer answer position, along with the lawyer-ly riff that he couldn't say more because the investigation surrounding the civil suits was ongoing. The Suit channeling the suits, in other words.

Meantime, Berry deployed his own fallback Non-Answer Answer position, saying over and over that the Browns had conducted a thorough five-month investigation into L'Affaire Watson -- even when asked, if that investigation was truly thorough, had they contacted any of the 22 plaintiffs or their legal representatives?

They didn't, of course. Which is why Berry kept non-answering the question. 

All of it confirmed what we already knew, which is that the Browns (and plenty of others) were willing to leave lots of troublesome stones unturned if it meant signing Watson. He is, after all, really good at playing quarterback.

 That's why the Browns paid $230 million over five years to get him, all of it guaranteed. And that's why it was just a coincidence (cough-cough) that they structured the deal so Watson won't get hurt monetarily if the NFL's own investigation results in him missing some games.

And the 22 women bringing suit against Watson? 

"(I have) empathy for anyone who's a victim of sexual abuse," Stefanski said during The Deshaun Show, with all appropriate piety and no apparent irony. 

Wonder what those 22 women thought when they heard that.

Or what they threw at their TVs.