Punishment unfazed

 You can see Roger Goodell this morning, in your mind's eye. He's just finished throwing a couple shovelfuls of dirt on the rotting corpse of the NFL's "We Respect Wimmen!" schtick.  He's walking away. He's brushing off this hands.

"Welp, that's that!" he's saying.

Or, "Close enough for government work!"

Or, "Fixed it!"

Meanwhile, Deshaun Watson, serial groper/tallywacker-dangler, is apologizing to the Browns for all the trouble these meddlesome wimmen have caused, but not for what he did to cause the wimmen to haul him into court and take his money.

And Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who handed the tallywacker-dangler $230 million in guaranteed money (shielding most of it against the tallywacker-dangler's impending suspension), is saying, doggone it, forget what he did. He's 26 years old and he's "a hell of a quarterback."

If this sounds like no one has learned anything, and that the 11-game suspension and chump change fine Goodell imposed on Watson yesterday hasn’t taught anyone a thing, grab yourself a cookie. You go straight to the head of the class. 

Goodell might think he fixed everything by ignoring arbitrator Sue L. Robinson's wimpy six-game suspension and imposing (cough-cough) Serious Punishment, but then Roger the Nerf Hammer still waits up for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Because what did we hear coming out of Cleveland yesterday?

Not dismay, certainly. Not, "Oh my God, this is so unfair!" And certainly not regret or remorse from either the Browns or Watson.

We heard relief.

We heard, "Thank God we didn't screw up and hand eff-you money to a guy we won't see on the field until next season." We heard, "Hey, this ain't so bad!" We heard just about everything, of course, except repentance.

Nope, here was Watson yesterday, apologizing only to the Browns and not to the women he abused. Asked why he settled with 24 of his 25 accusers, he said it wasn't because he did anything wrong. He said instead that he's "always been able to stand on my innocence." 

Which is the same as saying the 25 or 30 or however many women it is are all lying, and he's not. Which is what the Browns said when they handed him a then-record contract. 

Lots of folks out there on the interwhatsis reacted by saying they hope the Browns go winless this season. But the Blob is not so vindictive.

I just hope the Browns are met everywhere by a mob of pissed-off women.

And that the Ghost of Browns Quarterbacks Past turn Deshaun Watson into, oh, Tim Couch, maybe. Or Johnny Manziel. Or DeShone Kizer, or Josh McCown, or Brandon Weeden, or pretty much every Browns QB since Bernie Kosar.

Retribution, thy name is history. Something like that.