A couple of months ago, people thought that Deshaun Watson was being blackmailed and a victim of some sort of dirty tactic from the Houston Texans. That’s because, all of a sudden, he was sued for sexual misconduct right after demanding a trade away from the team.
Now, he’s facing up to 22 lawsuits with the same accusations, and his whole world is upside down, with people questioning whether he’ll ever play another snap in the National Football League.
But perhaps the worst part about Watson’s situation is just how poorly managed it’s been by its camp and his lawyer Rusty Hardin, who’s not doing much to make us think that Watson is innocent.
Attorney Tony Buzbee Says Deshaun Watson’s Camp Didn’t Take The Situation Seriously
Recently, attorney Tony Buzbee did an interview with The Washington Post walking us through whatever happened before this went public. Apparently, he reached out to Watson’s camp with a $100,000 demand to settle the case before the first lawsuit.
Instead,Scott Gaffield of Athletes First didn’t respond to Buzbee’s request and told him to make a new demand, which – according to Buzbee – was enough to know that they weren’t taking this matter seriously:
“He wanted us to bid against ourselves,” Buzbee said. “And I was done. Here’s something I can say with certainty based on 18 years of practicing law: That’s exactly how the legal sausage gets made. One side makes a demand, and the other side either responds to it (setting the stage for the exchange of further numbers) or doesn’t respond. Asking the party that made the opening demand to make a new demand constitutes a breach of negotiating etiquette, in every jurisdiction in the country if not the world.”
Buzbee Says Hardin Didn’t Want To Settle
Then, when Watson hired Rusty Hardin, Buzbee once again reached out to him to try and settle the situation. Things were already starting to look back for the All-Pro quarterback, yet Hardin didn’t want to play ball:
“Your guy’s got some kind of weird problem… alleged problem. This is already spiraling in a bad direction.Why don’t we try to resolve this now?”Buzbee allegedly told Watson’s lawyer.
To make things even worst, Hardin recently admitted that Deshaun Watson had several sexual encounters with some of the massage therapists that are now suing him, and that’s clearly not helping his case:
“So you’ve just told the world who’s watching that your client paid for sex? My grandma always said: ‘You’re digging yourself a hole already. Stop digging,’” Buzbee said.
Maybe Watson is innocent, we’d all love to think that. Maybe he’s not. But we can’t deny that those who are supposed to help him are doing the exact opposite thing.
SURVEY Do you think Watson's guilty?
Do you think Watson's guilty?
ALREADY VOTED 11 PEOPLE