Conor and Gary start things off with a discussion of the Browns, from their stunning decision to pursue Deshaun Watson while the quarterback is under the cloud of 22 civil lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct, to their stunning decision to award him an unprecedented contract, to their off-putting decision to build the contract around a likely suspension.
Then, the Davante Adams trade to the Raiders, what sense it could make for Vegas, and why it’s an even more significant setback for the Packers than you might realize.
Plus, whether Allen Robinson to L.A. signals another evolution for Sean McVay’s Rams offense, Robert Woods’s fit in Tennessee, what’s next for the Bengals after adding La’el Collins, and what might be the weirdest halftime show in Super Bowl history.
And again, here is the Deshaun Watson piece from May that will give you a much more complete understanding of what’s going on in Houston.
Have a comment, critique or question for a future mailbag? Email themmqb@gmail.com or tweet at @GGramling_SI or @ConorOrr.
The following is an automatically generated transcript from The MMQB NFL Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Gary Gramling: So we are starting obviously with Deshaun Watson and the football side of the saga comes to a close. He is traded to the Cleveland Browns despite continuing to face allegations for 22 different women in civil lawsuits. It was jarring because the Browns were declared to be out of the running and then got themselves back into the running, but also just jarring from a bigger picture standpoint, that this ended at the time when this whole situation, with allegations of sexual misconduct, has not yet been resolved.
Conor Orr: And here’s a funny thing about this. So the Browns issued statements from the Haslams, from Andrew Berry (the GM) and from Kevin Stefanski. And in true Denzel Washington Training Day style, they make everybody put their name on that statement so that they are all complicit in what they know is a complete horses--- maneuver. They were talking about the due diligence, but how could there be due diligence if none of the teams had reached out to any of the women in the lawsuit? And how could it be due diligence if there’s still an active investigation going on here? A grand jury declining to indict is not an exoneration. And yes, we the media who have to cover courts—and I feel like, even dating back to my days at The Star-Ledger I covered a court case at least once a year—maybe we know that and the general public doesn’t know that, and we’re not doing a good enough job explaining it. Or maybe the general public doesn’t want to hear it, and the Browns don’t wanna hear it and they assume that nobody’s gonna give a s---. So I think it’s really interesting that they made everybody put their names on that. And I thought it was interesting that Kevin Stefanski said, the due diligence work that Andrew did, not me, not anybody on my staff, but the people upstairs who are pushing the buttons and pulling the levers. So I thought all of that was interesting and largely thought the trade was just complete disgusting horses---.
