“Myles Garrett calls on Browns fans to boo “Model Citizen” Deshaun Watson after injury

Deshaun Watson appears to have suffered a season-ending injury on Sunday afternoon, which was a non-contact injury that the Cleveland Browns believe is a torn Achilles tendon. When he was sent off late in the first half of the team's 21-14 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, some Browns fans continued what they had started earlier and booed the injured quarterback.

That didn't please anyone in the organization, especially superstar defenseman Myles Garrett. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year expressed his displeasure with the sequence to reporters after the loss, saying no player deserves this treatment, before calling Watson a “model citizen” for the “most” of his professional career.

“Nobody deserves this,” Garrett said. “I’ve seen him work his ass off to come back here and put a smile on his face. Try to leave everything outside the facility behind. Death threats, people coming to his house, stalking his family. Nobody.” He deserves that… The man does pretty much everything right. He was a model citizen in college and most pros play the game as hard as anyone I've ever seen.

“We can’t look down on a guy because he’s made mistakes on the field or anything off the field,” Garrett continued. “We have no moral reason to look down on a man.”

Watson was drafted by the Houston Texans in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft. He demanded a transfer after the 2020 season and held out so he could play elsewhere. During that time, 22 lawsuits were filed against Watson accusing him of sexual assault. As a result of these allegations, the NFL suspended him for the first eleven games of the 2022 season. Earlier this season, he was again accused of sexual assault and assault in a civil lawsuit filed by another woman; Watson has since settled that lawsuit along with the others.

The Browns traded for Watson during his legal saga, giving him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract. In six starts this season, Watson led Cleveland to a 1-5 record and threw for over 1,000 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions.