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Regardless of what the Houston Texans really knew about former quarterback Deshaun Watson’s massage habits, they probably knew enough to justify it even more. Now, we will learn exactly what they knew and when they found out.
Lawyer Tony Buzbee, who represents the 24 women who have sued Watson for sexual misconduct during massage sessions, issued a statement on Wednesday stating that he will add jeans as defendants to the cases, along with others.
“From what we have learned from the Houston Police Department, we will soon join the Houston Texans and others as defendants in the ongoing lawsuits against Deshaun Watson,” Buzbee said. “Our team has thoroughly reviewed each case. We are considering many others. These women are the true heroes of this sordid story. What has become clear is that the Houston Texans organization and its ‘massage therapy company.’ In many of these cases, the Texans offered the opportunity for this behavior to occur.We believe that the Texan organization was well aware of Watson’s problems, but did not act. The Houston Texans organization provided rooms for Watson at Houston’s high-end hotel for their “massages,” and the Texans also provided massage tables and other supports for “We intend to make sure that everyone involved in Watson’s conduct is responsible, in addition to Watson himself.”
The New York Times’ Jenny Vrentas Tuesday story tells that the Texans provided hotel rooms at The Houstonian for Watson and that those rooms were used for some of their massages. In addition, after one of the recent plaintiffs threatened to expose Watson to social media in 2020, the team’s security director provided Watson with a confidentiality agreement, which he then asked those who massaged Watson to signessin.
Not that the Texans knew what Watson was doing. The argument will be that they didn’t ask obvious questions once they realized she was getting massages from multiple different women, mostly because she had access to these team services directly.