Stepping into almost any bar on Court Street with a television and a Prime Video subscription Thursday gave way to a mostly homogenous sea of Cleveland Browns jerseys, speckled with the black and yellow of a few lone Pittsburgh Steelers fans. As one of the most famous sports rivalries played out on screen and the two teams and the Browns ultimately, surprisingly, took home a win, announcer Al Michaels said:
“If you follow football, you know the story. We don’t have to go through the whole Deshaun Watson thing.”
The raucous cheering and jeering happening on Court Street and beyond likely prevented many from hearing this line live, but the firestorm on the internet after was inescapable. The “Deshaun Watson thing” Michaels was referring to is the Browns quarterback’s overwhelming quantity of sexual assault allegations. Michaels, alongside fellow announcer Kirk Herbstreit, easily flattened the allegations before claiming Watson would get a “second chance” from fans.
“You want the fans to get behind you, and that goes for pretty much any market,” Herbstreit said. “This is an extreme case because of what you laid out with Deshaun Watson, but if you convert on third downs, you hit passes, you lead this team to victories, those boos turn into cheers.”
Prominent sports journalists, including Mina Kimes, immediately called out Michaels’ and Herbstreit’s deeply offensive comments. But Michael and Herbstreit’s sentiment is neither new nor isolated only to football; this misogynistic rhetoric can be seen everywhere, every day.
It isn’t a coincidence in the same week as the insensitive announcing job from two of the most prominent voices in sports, an incredibly disturbing rape case came into the national spotlight. Seven men enrolled at Cornell University were accused of raping a woman for seven hours while she was forced to consume drugs and alcohol in their fraternity house.
Two of the men accused were removed from campus. The remaining five were allowed to stay on the condition that they wrote essays about what they did. However, the alleged survivor of their assault was denied a tuition refund when she left the university.
In the aftermath of the “Cornell Seven” case entering national attention, people are having new conversations about what the consequences — or lack of consequences — look like for sexual assault in America and beyond. For the seven men accused at Cornell, the consequences were essays. For Deshaun Watson, the consequences were a record-breaking $230 million fully guaranteed contract.
Watson did receive an 11-game suspension from the NFL and a record-setting $5 million fine in 2022. However, that same year, a grand jury declined to indict Watson on any criminal charges despite the fact he was facing 22 civil suits. Four years before the world would learn about the case at Cornell, a man with lots of money and power would evade any criminal prosecution for a very similar crime.
Sexual assaulters rarely face consequences. On college campuses, rape and sexual assault are both extremely underreported and rarely prosecuted. When celebrities, athletes and politicians face accusations of sexual assault, rarely do they face meaningful consequences.
Carter Hart, one of the five Canada hockey players accused of sexual assault who was acquitted in 2025 despite a plethora of evidence, competed for the Stanley Cup this year. President Donald Trump, despite having a high-profile relationship with human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is still the president of a global superpower.
Thursday’s comments from sportscasters with decades-long careers are both a symptom of a system that looks for any reason to excuse sexual assault and also the same rhetoric that perpetuates the excusal of sexual assault.
Some Browns fans may excuse Watson if he keeps winning, but they absolutely shouldn’t. It is exciting to see the Browns winning — anyone who knows anything about football knows Cleveland deserves a winning season. But no one can let a winning season distract from the fact Watson and his forgivers are a part of a system that harms women without any recourse.
Jackson McCoy is a senior studying journalism and environmental studies at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to share your thoughts? Let Jackson know by emailing him at jm049122@ohio.edu.
