To Cheer Or Not To Cheer
Sports is meant as an escape. Sports were not built to test the limits of human intellect, not meant to paint a picture of right or wrong, not intended to be a metaphor for life and create moral conundrums for its fans to have to shift through. You can say I’m wrong, that the very birthplace of “sports” was the Colosseum in Rome where criminals were put to death in front of throngs of people for the enjoyment of the wealthy. But to me, I want to be able to sit down in my easy chair, pop open a Miller Lite, and watch a football game without having to take into consideration the past deeds of a team’s quarterback or worry about the future mental well being of someone we watched just barely a month ago go into a fencing position as he crashed his concussed brain into the chest of a man who died on the field a year before.
Yet here is where we were on Sunday in Week 7: Deshaun Watson, Achilles ripped in half, laid bare on the field and clutching his leg in agony, while cheers rained down upon him, joy seemingly overflowing from the crowd that he is no longer going to be playing quarterback. Maybe not everyone in the stands, but enough that it was heard by any and all in attendance and watching at home in their easy chairs. And while I get it for those fans that may feel as though celebration was warranted, I can’t and won’t and will not ever cheer for an injury.
Watson is not a sympathetic figure. He lost that title at least 27 settled cases ago. Whatever disgust and disdain fans heap upon him is almost entirely warranted. You can be as upset as you want to be at him for his actions, the coaching staff/front office for sticking with him as starting QB, and ownership for employing him at all. I will not ever tell someone how to feel, or how they should react. For those that cheered Watson being removed from the game…I get it. He robbed you of the innocence of feeling good about a team, and when you couple that with the injuries and the bad play when healthy…it’s incredibly difficult to root for the player, let alone the team that signed him to the highest-paid contract and most guaranteed money ever while also forking over three firsts that have slowly mortgaged the future. The pressure cooker that is being a Browns fan has turned into a pipe bomb and last Sunday, it exploded just like Watson’s tendon.
On the flip side, the blowback from players was broad and hit those who, like me, were not part of the cheer squad. It’s not hard to see it from the players side: these are the modern-day gladiators, every play could be their last, on the field and maybe in life, as they careen themselves into bigger, heavier, stronger men each and every time in an effort to catch a ball and reach a line and receive cheers. The thought that suffering an injury might be something that is applauded is completely opposed to the task assigned to them, and so when it happens to one of theirs, the ant hill has been kicked. Coming to bat for a player and teammate is essential, but the issue most fans have is the way it was also presented from the players. As I said above, Watson is not a sympathetic figure. Sticking up for the player is one thing, but the framing of the responses from Myles Garrett and Jameis Winston, giving him flowers for a “clean college and most of the pro career” is a bad look. I’m loathe to discredit people and their feelings, but giving Watson plusses to “character” with what we’ve been told about his past is whitewashing entirely too much.
However, starting this Sunday, we get back to Browns football: arguing about who’s calling plays, why Winston threw the interception he will inevitably throw, and we get to watch one Nicholas Jamaal Chubb carry the rock. We aren’t worrying about how much money the team might get from injury insurance now that Watson is on IR and how it affects the cap next year. Sure, the team is likely to get rocked by the behemoth Baltimore as they come to town, but we are used to that. Nature is healing.
