Deshaun Watson’s Week 1 start is NFL’s latest black eye

Deshaun Watson is going to be the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns at the beginning of the 2026 season. It’s an indefensible, inexcusable act of incompetence and cruelty.

There are plenty of football reasons why Watson should not be a starting quarterback — he ranks as one of the worst starters in the league when he plays, he’s been oft-injured (Achilles tears in October 2024 and January 2025) and he ended the preseason with an abysmal showing that resulted in fans booing him. There are going to be plenty of pundits who spend the next few weeks lambasting the Browns for trotting out such an abysmal player under center.

When Watson took the podium after the Browns preseason game against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, he addressed the fans who continue to boo him: “It has nothing to do about the performance,” he said after adjusting his diamond earring. “It’s still a bit [more] personal than that. So, I think that it’s a disrespectful thing. So yeah, I mean, I’m gonna keep whatever I feel with me and my family internally on how I feel about that.” 

Let’s not gloss over the first part: The “personal.” 

Watson has settled 27 lawsuits and claims against him for various offenses against women dating back to 2020. The accusations of sexual misconduct range from him exposing himself to massage therapists to sexual assault and battery. Twenty-seven cases — all from women who have described in detail the fear, terror and trauma they allegedly suffered at Watson’s hands.

And yet, his full punishment from the NFL was an 11-game suspension when he was traded to the Browns — a trade that made him the highest-paid player in the league. He received $230 million guaranteed.

For Watson to act like it’s unfair to get booed for “personal” reasons is a reminder that he doesn’t understand — nor has he been forced to understand — what it means to be accountable for his actions. In that same news conference Sunday, Watson said he has “no regrets” in life. He should have at least 27.

This is not a sports story. This isn’t a football story. This is a story of misogyny, cruelty and how terrorizing women is normalized. We can’t talk about this as just the X’s and O’s of a quarterback. We have to talk about this in terms of what it means to people who have to watch this man continue to play in the NFL unabated.

Starting Watson, an objectively inept quarterback, is one level of front office disaster. But it’s impossible to discuss this without talking about the type of organization that pays for and trots out a player who has been attached to such atrocities. 

Usually, the NFL and its teams explain away the continued support of abusers by allowing them to be great on the field. Sadly, the best remedy for the way we see accused abusers is them being exceptional football players — Antonio Brown, Ben Roethlisberger, Rashee Rice, and the list unfortunately goes on and on.

Watson doesn’t even clear that depressingly low bar. 

Sure, one can argue that the Browns want the most out of what’s left of his massive contract — he is still owed $46 million this season. His best value, however, is being away from the team. It’s worth the supposedly lost salary for the Browns and their fans to be able to turn the page on this dark chapter in their history.

The damage to their franchise is bordering on irreparable. Fans are nearing a revolt, and it’ll only get worse when one of the league’s worst quarterbacks, and a guy whose reputation is about as bad as any player in the NFL, returns to Cleveland for its first home game in Week 3.

There is no upside to this. There’s only disgust, cruelty and an insult to women across the country. 

It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that this is all happening as we approach a season 10 years removed from Colin Kaepernick’s last in the NFL.

If there’s one lesson we’ve gained from that moment, it’s that the NFL knows how to get rid of players it deems bad for the league. The NFL knows how to exile. It knows how to dismiss. It knows how to come together and remove someone. Yet, Watson — who, it’s important to note, has become a worse quarterback than Kaepernick ever was — is allowed to remain. If he’s still playing in October, does he wear pink for breast cancer awareness? Does he take the field wearing the paraphernalia of someone who is supposed to support women in their struggles?

Watson playing in the NFL and starting Week 1 is an affront to the notion of a protected shield. It’s an affirmation of who can skate by and who gets punished. And it’s a reminder that harming women never seems to rise to the level of outrage that causes any real consequences for those who perpetrate it.

Finally, it’s yet another case of sports imitating life — even at its most painfully unjust.