“It was the right thing to do,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank defends pursuit of Deshaun Watson amidst sexual assault investigation
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For a whole lot of the NFL offseason, Deshaun Watson was the one player who grabbed all the headlines with talks regarding his future amidst the numerous sexual harrasment charges made on him. The troubled Houston Texans quarterback eventually earned himself a trade move to the Cleveland Browns after the franchise shook off a few other teams from the race.
One of the sides who were also in the reckoning to sign Deshaun Watson was Atlanta Falcons. Falcons’ owner Arthur Blank has now come out and defended his franchise for going after the quarterback despite him being accused of sexually assault.
“I would say exploring,” Arthur Blank makes Atlanta Falcons’ stance clear on the failed Deshaun Watson trade
However the quarterback was freed from all charges after a court gave their judgement in favour of him and removed all further cases made against him. Despite this, the franchises faced major flak for going after a man who had a criminal record as fans believed he did not deserve a chance to play in the NFL.
Speaking on Deshaun Watson’s trade, Arthur Blank said that the Falcons were not much involved in the talks and they were mostly held as exploratory options for the coming season.
“We explored it enough to where we spent some time with him for maybe an hour and 15 minutes,” Blank said, via D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He and his agent and trainer or something. So I mean it got to that stage. So it was a worthwhile use of our time.”
“I think for us, to the level of pursuit that we had, the exploratory stage, I think was the right thing to do,” Blank said. “Would it have made sense to go further than that? It would depend on, you know, what a much more intensive process would have revealed or discussions we would have had.
Arthur Blank specifically harped on the word “explore” as he laid a stauch defense of their approach towards Deshaun Watson. He however did acknowledge that the Falcons held an interview with him which was the last time the two sides spoke regarding the trade deal.
Speaking more on the failed Deshaun Watson trade, Arthur Blank said, “The word ‘explore’ is the key word. I would say exploring it, and we matched the amount of work we were doing to the word exploring. And it wasn’t more than that. It wasn’t less than that.”
“That was the commitment we made, and we had the interview with him, and that was the last of it. So it certainly is an area of concern. … I don’t know what the truth is. I know what Deshaun says. But I also know there are 22 allegations out there and that’s a very significant [number] and [a] serious subject. … I don’t know what’s going to come of [the 22 cases].”
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