In January of 2021, the Jacksonville Jaguars hired a man who has spent pretty much every day of his coaching career winning football games. He hadn’t always been the most graceful gentleman, in fact had left his prior coaching position after being suspended for things said and done that were outside the boundaries of ideal conduct, but the Ohio State Buckeyes won 90 percent of the games with him on the sideline.
Urban Meyer didn’t even make it through a year as an NFL head coach. No matter his resume, he did not fit and did not succeed. His Jaguars won twice in 13 tries. The league was not for him.
And so it is true regarding Sue L. Robinson, a former U.S. District Court judge, who was appointed the league’s disciplinary officer this year in an agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association.
She has demonstrated, in her first season, she is irreconcilably bad at it.
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Her decision Monday to suspend Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson for six games – for what even she termed “a pattern of behavior” that was “egregious” – was stunning given the NFL’s request for a suspension of at least a year. That “pattern of behavior” led to the Houston Texans 30 settling out of court with women who alleged sexual misconduct by Watson, and Watson's legal team to settle with 23 of 24 plaintiffs.
And yet because that “pattern of behavior”, according to Robinson, consisted of “nonviolent sexual conduct”, Watson could be suiting up to play football by late October.
Judge Sue L. Robinson’s decision says Deshaun Watson’s “pattern of behavior was egregious,” but notes that behavior was “nonviolent sexual conduct” in explaining the decision to suspend him six games, per source.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) August 1, 2022
In March, when Watson signed with the Browns for $230 million, the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center released a statement declaring its disappointment at the decision: “This story is triggering for far too many of our friends and neighbors. To our survivors, we say we see you and we believe you … To the community, we say we hear your outrage. We feel it too.”
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There already are myriad public complaints about the gentleness of Watson’s punishment comparative to the minimum one-season ban slapped on Falcons receiver Calvin Ridley for “betting on NFL games” and the four games Tom Brady sat out in 2016 for “conduct detrimental to the integrity of the league,” specifically involvement in the deflation of footballs to make them easier to grip and throw.
Those penalties were handed out in a different system, though.
This is a new procedure, which placed all the power for the initial decision regarding Watson’s potential punishment in the hands of an independent third party. And Robinson fumbled.
She didn’t just drop the ball at the opposing 45 in the opening quarter of a scoreless game. No, given the notoriety of the case and the “egregious” behavior engendering lawsuits Watson voluntarily chose to settle out of court, this was equivalent to losing the ball at the goal line and watching it bounce out of the end zone with the Super Bowl at stake.
This was a game-changing blunder.
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The NFL can choose to correct it by appealing. That’s the next possible step according to the new disciplinary process, and the ultimate arbiter in that case would be commissioner Roger Goodell. Before it became official Monday morning, the NFLPA publicly asked that Robinson’s decision be final.
The league doesn’t have to agree, but the union has threatened to pursue legal action if it does not, and the NFL may not wish to wind up in court defending a decision to assign a more appropriately severe penalty.
As it stands, it’s difficult to determine whether it’s the assigned penalty by Robinson or her lame justification that is more shameful. Robinson found the “pattern of behavior” to be “egregious” and outside the boundaries of the league’s personal conduct policy, but because it is “nonviolent” that means it warrants a meager punishment? Is this the 21st century?
On second thought, having seen the text of the decision Robinson provided to the league, it’s apparent her ruling on the penalty is entirely lacking in reason. She accused the NFL of “responding to yet another public outcry” in pushing for an extensive suspension and of “attempting to impose a more dramatic shift in its culture without the benefit of fair notice to – and consistency of consequence for – those in the NFL subject to the Policy.”
It’s almost breathtaking how horrible this document is. She’s asserting the NFL should have explained to its players that if any of them were to engage in conduct that leads to allegations of sexual misconduct from two dozen women that the league would view that as, well, really, really bad.
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Robinson graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in 1978 and worked in the U.S. Attorney office, as a U.S. Magistrate and a U.S. District Court judge starting in 1991. Just as 187 victories and an .854 winning percentage as a college head coach did not help Meyer become anything more than an NFL head coaching disaster, though, Robinson’s extensive legal background only meant her dreadful resolution of the Watson hearing was a more profound disappointment.
One imagines there are plenty of retired judges and justices that could have done better.
There’s no requirement for a law degree to judge that.