Availability beats culpability

DeShawn Watson gets only 6 games for sexual ,isbehavior, while Baker Mayfield winds up shortchanged in Charlotte.

Baker Mayfield no longer lives at the stadium, like he did in the commercials. The last one could have shown the Browns heaving their former savior into a snowy Cleveland backalley, after they’d frisked him and removed $3.5 million.

Through the wonders of Advil and through faulty advice, either from himself or somewhere else, Mayfield (pictured, bottom) tried to play an NFL season with a torn left labrum in 2021. He did not succeed, just a year after he had won the first playoff game in “new Browns” history, a blowout of the despised Steelers. He won six and lost eight of his starts and chucked 13 interceptions. He went from toast of the town to mere toast.

Now, in one of the NFL’s best illustrations of microwave memory, Mayfield is with the Carolina Panthers, who are paying only $4.86 million. The Browns coughed up $10.5 million to rid themselves of Mayfield, and he agreed to give himself a $3.5 million cut, redeemable through certain incentives. Presumably he can find a suite and a study inside Bank of America Stadium.

The Browns replace him with DeShaun Watson, who is one of the most dangerous quarterbacks on two feet but can also be threatening from a prone position. He has settled 23 of 24 lawsuits with massage therapists who claimed he acted in a lewd, sexually threatening way. Two accused him of sexual assault. Two grand juries in Texas declined to indict the former Houston quarterback, but, as Jack Warden told Paul Newman in “The Verdict,” a settlement means you won. In this case it carries at least the sheen of guilt.

But not to worry. Thanks to a ruling from retired judge Sue Robinson, Watson (pictured, top) wlll only be suspended for games 1-6 of the coming season. That gives him 11 games to show what he was in Houston. The time isn’t nearly commensurate with the crime, but that’s the way the NFL works, and Watson and the Browns prepared accordingly. Although the Browns gave him a league-record, fully-guaranteed $230 million contract over five years, they limited his base salary in 2022 to $1 million. He won’t lose nearly as much money this way.

Robinson was given authority to handle such disciplinary matters because NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was tired of such hassles, no-win situations that threaten his legacy. However, the NFL is expected to appeal the ruling. It wanted Watson gone for an entire year.

Robinson was a district judge in Delaware, appointed by President George H.W. Bush. She wielded a tough gavel, ordinarily. The state had a campaign law that forced groups who distributed campaign materials to disclose who was giving them money to do so. Robinson blocked the enforcement of that law.

Prisoners in Delaware sued for more humane conditions, since they claimed they were being splashed with water from toilets, and some were sleeping on the floor. Robinson quashed that suit, saying the state had no obligation to expand their constitutional rights.

So Robinson has heard protesters outside her window before. The NFL’s problem is that it specifically asked for Robinson, or someone like her, to catch the incoming. This is her first case and, if the NFL interferes, maybe her last.

What will bring Robinson the most flak is her description of Watson’s antics as “nonviolent.” Watson’s insistence that the masseuses hold various rendezvous with his private parts is clearly psychologically violent, and it’s odd that someone in 2022 would actually make that distinction.

Robinson did point out that Watson could have used any number of masseuses in the Texans’ employ, but sought out the private sector. Instead of using sheets to cover himself, Watson brought towels, and not always bath towels either.

“Mr. Watson had a sexual purpose, not just a theraputic purpose, in making these arrangements with these particular therapists,” Robinson wrote.

To get Watson, the Browns gave Houston first-round picks in ‘22, ‘23 and ‘24, along with a third and two fourths. That’s what you must do to get a deluxe quarterback that you didn’t draft. Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks, NFL scouts who do the “Move The Sticks” podcast, are fond of referring to QBs as “trucks” or “trailers.” A truck is a guy like Watson who pulls the cargo. A trailer is a lesser QB who has to be pulled along.

Before the playoffs last year Jeremiah and Brooks were listing the trucks and trailers and hit a wall when they got to the Rams’ Matthew Stafford. They finally called him an “El Camino,” which can qualify as both. Obviously they’ve updated that, since the Super Bowl. But Mayfield has been classified as a trailer, and some even call him trash.

When did Mayfield become the problem? In 2020 he threw 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions. The Browns were 11-5 and got to the playoffs for the first time since 2002, and Mayfield had a 95.9 quarterback rating. He was sassy and seething, but he was also fearless and creative. When the Browns beat Houston in 2020, Mayfield had his 12th win in the home stadium, breaking a tie with Ben Roethlisberger, who had 11 and plays for the Steelers. At this point Mayfield has 20 home wins.

He should have been a Cleveland hero. Even last year he put 42 points on the Chargers in a loss, won at Cincinnati, 41-16, completed 40 of 49 in his first two games. But the late interceptions finally reached critical mass, as did his abrasive relationship with teammates. When Odell Beckham Jr. pried himself out of Cleveland and became a delightful presence with the Rams, that was a bank-shot indictment of Mayfield.

What’s forgotten is the parade of palookas that came before. In the eight pre-Mayfield years, there were 26 Browns who threw passes, from Johnny Manziel to Deshone Kizer to Brandon Weedon to Ken Dorsey to at least one McCown. Trailers? These were hitches.

The Browns could have kept Mayfield, or Mayfield could have agreed to get his shoulder fixed early last season. They would still have the draft picks. Instead they have Watson, who may have glorious moments ahead but has ducked true justice.

Sports leagues should be more creative with their suspensions. For instance, a marginal hockey player who commits senseless violence should be made to play 20 minutes in the next game, instead of the eight he normally plays. That would solve the problem from within.

To stretch that logic, there’s nothing that says a 6-game suspension should be served at the beginning. Make the Browns pay the full price for this. Do without Watson in the final six. Try to make the playoffs with Jacoby Brissett or Josh Rosen.

That won’t happen. Unless Goodell thinks he can suspend Watson throughout, the Browns and their quarterback will play on, knowing that the noise will fade away with each chilly weekend.

On their truck, remorse is not standard equipment.