ESPN’s Chris Canty Slams Browns Players for Defending Deshaun Watson’s Character After Season-Ending Injury: ‘Complete Lack of Awareness’
ESPN analyst Chris Canty took aim at Cleveland Browns players for the way they defended quarterback Deshaun Watson after he sustained a season-ending injury.
Watson on Sunday suffered a non-contact injury when he tried scrambling from the pocket during the Browns’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Replays of the injury led viewers to suspect that Watson had torn his Achilles, and those suspicions were confirmed later that day.
When Watson went down, Browns fans at Huntington Bank Field actually appeared to boo Watson when he initially fell to ground for the injury. When he was carted off, the crowd cheered. In response, a number of Browns players — including Jameis Winston and Myles Garrett — condemned the crowd reaction while speaking highly of Watson’s character.
On Monday’s episode of Unsportsmanlike, Canty explained why the players took it too far asking for fans to show “empathy” toward Watson — who recently settled his 21st sexual misconduct lawsuit:
Where was the empathy for the two dozen victims to his sexual misconduct? And then them being forced to relive that trauma after the Cleveland Browns give Deshaun Watson $230 million? Where’s your empathy for how they felt in that moment, for how victims of sexual abuse might feel in that moment? Seeing somebody being accused of something so despicable, be rewarded in that fashion? That’s the part where the players gotta be careful with that line. I mean, LeBron James came out yesterday and talked about how lame it was for the Cleveland fans to boo Watson when he got hurt. Did you come out and talk about how lame it was with Deshaun Watson having two dozen sexual misconduct cases? That’s when you gotta be careful as a player, when it comes to issues like this.
And I understand wanting to defend your teammate. I understand that bunker mentality. You know, “I’m in the foxhole with my guy and I gotta defend my guy.” There was nothing wrong with those players coming out and saying, “It lacks class for the Cleveland Browns fans to boo when Deshaun Watson got hurt.” Period, end sentence. Leave it there! For you to go out there and make calls for empathy shows a complete lack of awareness; and something about that has to change. It is completely insensitive and those players who thought they were doing the right thing could not have been more wrong in that moment with their commentary.
Watch above via ESPN
