The NFL announced Wednesday they would appeal the decision by former federal judge Sue L. Robinson to suspend Deshaun Watson for six games and 92.3 The Fan’s The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima said the NFL’s decision is driven by media reaction.
“My son woke up this morning — 2:00 AM — throwing up all over my bathroom. Not the worst thing I’ve dealt with today,” Carman said. “The national media has been very, very, very, very upset. There’s no other way to say it.”
“I should have known. I should have realized when shows like Pardon The Interruption, when this stuff gets brought to light — I mean we saw national news had this over the last 24 hours — I should have known that the NFL was gonna cave to the public perception”, Lima said. “They had a day and a half to sit and marinate on what they should do. Guys, I hate to say it, but nobody had your back. Nobody had Deshaun Watson’s back and nobody had the Browns back.”
Carman then alluded to the national media’s reaction that the suspension was too lenient as the reason the NFL decided to appeal the suspension.
“The problem is, you have a sports league that cares about what the media says, cares about what everyone else thinks. They got Kyle Brandt, on their own network, ripping them. One of the people that’s in their highest honor club, Kurt Warner — Hall of Famer — saying you have to establish a new precedent here,” Ken Carman.
Doug Lesmerises, a writer for Cleveland.com, joined the show to discuss the NFL’s decision. Lesmerises recently wrote a column pointing out that Robinson’s ruling points out Watson, in her eyes, is guilty of sexually assaulting the women interviewed for the NFL’s disciplinary hearing, but he too fought back against commentary he thought unfair of Browns fans.
“What do you think of some of the national pundits going after Browns fans at (training) camp?” Carman
“I hate it. It’s pompous. It’s so stupid,” Doug Lesmerises said. “How you have enough energy when you have Deshaun Watson, and (Browns owners) the Haslam’s, and Andrew Berry, and the criminal justice system and everything that’s actually at play here, and you have enough energy, after blaming them, to go after fans?”
Carman later added “if I were to go to camp and somebody gets an autograph I’m supposed to look down at 12-year-old Junior and say ‘do you feel good about yourself? You 12-year-old kid.’ Good god, who the hell am I? Come on! I can be upset about Deshaun Watson, and the Browns, and all that stuff. But I’m not gonna blame the fans. I’m not gonna blame a kid for getting an autograph. It’s silly. It’s such a punching down thing.
“It’s just some of the lowest common denominator thing we do in the media,” Carman said. “Of all the things, come on. There’s a guy out there practicing and fans are going to root for him.”
