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In the past 12 months, Deshaun Watson has faced 22 civil lawsuits, but that number rose to 23 this week when a new lawsuit was filed in Texas.
When the latest lawsuit was filed Tuesday, it contained an interesting piece of information: Apparently, Watson was offering each plaintiff $100,000 to settle each of the 22 lawsuits he faced. It was already known that settlement talks were taking place around the trading deadline last season, but it was not known how much Watson would offer to settle each case.
As first noted by Pro Football Talk, there is a notation in the recent lawsuit mentions the settlement offer. The latest lawsuit is 11 pages long and hidden on the second page was a note about the settlement offer.
Here’s what the notation says: “We now know that Deshaun Watson offered each plaintiff $100,000 to settle their cases, but not all would accept that amount due to the aggressive non-disclosure agreement.” [NDA] suggested by Watson’s team.”
The notation was added by Tony Buzbee, representing each of the 23 plaintiffs. Buzbee is the attorney for all 22 women involved in the settlement talks, and he is also representing the woman who filed her lawsuit this week.
So why would Watson offer a settlement when he insists he’s innocent? Here’s a look at how the offer ties into everything that’s happened over the past nine months:
- It appears that this offer was made in October. Back in January, one of the women in the case offered the Daily Beast a copy of the non-disclosure agreement. The woman never signed the NDA, which indicated Watson would be willing to pay her $100,000 to sign her sometime in October. At the time, it wasn’t clear if the offer was just for her or if it was aimed at the other women. Based on court documents released this week, the offer appears to have been made to all 22 women.
- Why did Watson’s team want an NDA? Watson’s attorney recently stated that the only reason he wanted the women to sign a non-disclosure agreement was because the Miami Dolphins wanted it. The Dolphins attempted to strike a deal for Watson back in October, and according to multiple reports at the time, they would only complete the deal if Watson reached an agreement with all 22 women who had filed a lawsuit. In the end, only 18 of the 22 women agreed, blowing up the deal and taking the settlement off the table as it was an all-or-nothing deal.
- Tony Buzbee says NDA ruined settlement talks After the trade deadline, Buzbee said the aggressive non-disclosure agreements wrecked the deal. “There were non-disclosure agreements in what was presented to us and a lot of the women refused those,” Buzbee said in November. Buzbee specifically referred to the NDAs as “deal-breakers” in the same interview.
Basically, it appears that Watson’s camp offered each plaintiff the $100,000 settlement to trade with the Dolphins, which tells you how close a trade was to a trade. If all 22 women had agreed to Watson’s settlement offer, it’s possible Watson would now be playing for the Dolphins, but four of the women have pushed back and refused to sign.
As of this writing, Watson is still facing 23 civil lawsuits. Meanwhile, the NFL is finalizing its investigation into the Browns quarterback, an investigation that Commissioner Roger Goodell said should be completed soon.
“I think we’re nearing the end of the investigation period,” Goodell said at the May 24 spring league meeting. “Then it will be dealt with by our Disciplinary Officer.”
Although the investigation is expected to be completed in the near future, Goodell has not given a timeline for a possible announcement of the results, in which the league would reveal whether or not Watson faces a punishment.
