Deshaun Watson's Redemption Is Better Than Shedeur Sanders' Coronation | Ep 1217

**Jason Whitlock** (0:01)
Todd Monken just named Deshaun Watson the starter for the Browns preseason opener in Chicago. Shedeur Sanders gets the home start against Buffalo.
That's the headline. Here's the truth underneath it. Half of Cleveland has already moved on. They want the jersey that still smells like new money. They want Coach Primes, boy. They want the Instagram quarterback with the bravado and the uneven tape, seven starts, seven touchdowns, 10 interceptions crowned before the body of work even exist. They want Deshaun Watson treated like radioactive waste on the last year of a fully guaranteed contract.
I'm still rooting for Deshaun Watson, not the brand, the man who has to answer for what he did with the keys to the kingdom.

**Charles Baker** (0:55)
This is that fire.

**Jay Scappinette** (0:56)
Grab your popcorn.

**Jason Whitlock** (0:59)
All right. It's hard not to fall in love with yourself when the world screams that you should.
Nothing corrupts more than praise. That's why the Bible instructs us to save our praise and our worship for him and only him. Not for arms, not for arms races, not for men who can't throw a football through a tire at 40 yards. Psalms 115 is blunt about it. The idols of the nation have mouths, but they do not speak. Eyes, but they do not see. The people who make them become like them. You become what you worship.
America forgot that verse. Sports media never read it. We don't just cheer quarterbacks anymore. We ordain them. We write liturgy about their auras. We tell little boys that if you climb out of poverty and put up numbers on Saturday, the country owes you reverence on Sunday and a blank check on Monday. That lie didn't just seduce Deshaun Watson, it seduced Jimmy Haslam, it seduced Cleveland, and it is seducing a whole new congregation around Shedeur Sanders right now.
Before you spit, remember who he was. I'm talking about Deshaun Watson, Gainesville, Georgia, single mother, four kids, four siblings, government housing until Habitat for Humanity put actual keys in the family's hands. Deanne Watson, tongue taken by cancer, writing, I love you and keep doing what you're doing on scraps of paper because she couldn't speak the words. A 15-year-old boy watching his mother fight for her life in silence. That is not a press release. That is a crucible. He carried that fire to Clemson, went 32 and 3 as a starter, graduated in three years, beat Alabama for the National Championship. Dabbo Sweeney, who had known him since ninth grade, stood in front of the NFL and said, passing on Deshaun Watson was like passing on Michael Jordan. Greatest preparer he'd ever been around. One in a million, too busy being great to be distracted. The world looked at a black kid from a Habitat house who conquered Alabama and the SEC and the national stage. And the world did what the world always does with that story. It didn't just respect Deshaun Watson, it worshiped him. Then Deshaun Watson gained the whole world and lost the plot. I'm not confused about the record. Two dozen civil allegations from massage therapists. A detailed pattern the public has now read in court filings and timelines. No criminal conviction, an NFL suspension of 11 games, a $5 million fine, mandatory counseling, settlements, a cloud that followed him from Houston to the shores of Lake Erie. If you need me to pretend women did not walk into rooms and walk out accusing him of treating their bodies like amenities that came with his fame, watch another show. I'm not going to do that. I don't have amnesia. Here's the part the soft culture cannot say. He held the keys. Nobody frog marched a Super Bowl quarterback or superstar quarterback into a private massage room. Nobody forced secrecy. Nobody made him believe the ordinary rules of dignity bent around his gift. Praise told him he was the exception. Money told him he was untouchable. Talent told him the world would clean up whatever he broke. Scripture already named this disease. Jesus asked, would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Deshaun Watson ran that experiment in real time. The arm was real. The work ethic dabble saw was real. The childhood suffering was real. And the choices that detonated his name, they were real too.
Fall from grace is not something that happens to a quarterback like Weather. Sin is not a bad bounce. Agency means the man in the mirror signed off on the life that wrecked the witness.
I can root for redemption without lying about the fall. In fact, you can not have redemption without telling the truth about the fall. Which brings me to Cleveland and to Jimmy Haslam's original sin. In March of 2022, the Browns didn't just sign a quarterback. They held a coronation, fully guaranteed five years, $230 million contract, multiple first round picks shipped to Houston. Baker Mayfield, a former number one overall pick, who had dragged that franchise back into relevance, discarded midstream so the owner could drape himself in the reverence narrative.