I feel like we owe Matt Millen an apology

He was bad at running a football team, but leave it to the Cleveland Browns to be even worse.

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It’s conventional wisdom that Millen, a former star with the Oakland/Los Angeles/Las Vegas/Sacramento/Fresno/Laughlin/Bakersfield Raiders, is the worst general manager in National Football League history.

Aside from Calvin Johnson, who was basically a gift from his old team, pretty much all of his high-profile draft picks flopped in the NFL and the team had a string of losing seasons, culminating in their 0-16 campaign in 2008 (when the team finally kicked Millen to the curb, several years too late).

What led the Ford family to keep Millen around as long as they did may never be known. I suspect compromising photos may have been involved. But the Lions - already known as perennial losers, outside of a few seasons with Barry Sanders - saw their reputation plummet from “unsuccessful franchise” to “laughingstock” during Millen’s tenure. It got so bad, Detroit fans organized a “Millen Man March” demanding that he be fired. (It drew a good crowd, though well short of a millen.)

But I’ll say this for Matt Millen: he never traded away his team’s future and gave a $200M+ contract to a terrible quarterback who allegedly moonlights as a sexual predator:

Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson has been accused of a 2020 sexual assault in a lawsuit filed Monday in Texas. The lawsuit, a copy of which has been obtained and reviewed by CBS Sports, was filed by attorney Tony Buzbee, who also represented many of the 25-plus women that previously sued Watson for varying degrees of sexual assault.

The prior lawsuits were settled out of court. The NFL penalized Watson with an 11-game suspension ahead of the 2022 season. 

Watson is being accused of sexual assault and battery in the latest lawsuit. The woman, referred to as "Jane Doe," alleges that an extremely disturbing encounter with Watson occurred at her home in October 2020. 

"This is an extremely serious matter," Buzbee said in a statement to CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones. "We intend to pursue this case with the same aggressiveness with which we pursued the others. We want a jury trial. As far as any specific comments on the facts of the case, we believe the lawsuit speaks for itself."

[…]

This is a civil case, so from a legal perspective, the biggest issue for Watson would be having to pay damages to the plaintiff. However, the NFL could see this case as proof of a personal conduct policy violation or a violation of his negotiated suspension. The Browns, given Watson's notoriously disastrous contract, could potentially seek avenues for voiding part or all of his future guarantees. 

Watson's behavior was previously described by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as "predatory." Goodell said the league believed a full-season ban should have been on the table for the quarterback's initial punishment. Part of Watson's collectively bargained 11-game suspension included the punishment covering any similar incidents from 2019-21. However, the NFL has power to investigate "if any new allegations arise against Watson that are different in nature," according NFL.com.

Unlike prior cases, this lawsuit specifically alleges sexual assault. That could potentially allow it to fall into a different category for the league.  

Watson is not criminally charged in this case, and indeed he has never been charged or convicted of a sexual offence.

But, as someone noted on Reddit, considering the number of allegations he’s faced it’s basically a he-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said-she-said situation.

And here’s the thing: many of the allegations were known before the Browns kicked Baker Mayfield to the curb, sent three first-round draft picks to Houston for Watson, and subsequently gave him one of the most lucrative contracts in NFL history.