Deshaun Watson will start the 2022 NFL season with a six-game suspension — at least for now.
According to NFL insider Aaron Wilson, league sources and legal experts believe the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell will file an appeal to “significantly increase” Watson’s punishment.
Wilson reports that the NFL’s appeal could come sometime in the next three days.
On Monday, Judge Sue L. Robinson revealed Watson’s six-game suspension with a lengthy, 16-page ruling. The jointly-appointed NFL disciplinary officer found that the 26-year-old quarterback violated the league’s personal conduct policy as he collected 24 civil cases of alleged sexual misconduct.
The NFL world took to Twitter to react to this news.
“Extremely rare Roger Goodell W,” one fan wrote.
“I bet 12. For the NFL they can say ‘we set a new precedent and doubled the Big Ben incident.’ The sad thing is they’ll consider it a win even though everything about this is unprecedented and he belongs in jail,” another added.
“All opinions on Watson aside, this is a very interesting situation. The NFL hired an independent third party *first* rather than letting that independent person be the final word. The NFL seems to be absolutely incapable of getting out of their own way on league discipline,” another said.
In addition to Watson’s relatively lenient suspension, he also received zero monetary punishments. Wilson believes the quarterback could get 4-6 more games and a “multi-million dollar fine.”
What kind of punishment do you think Watson deserves?