Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam doesn’t understand the difference between giving someone a second chance and actively rewarding bad behavior. Now that we know the Deshaun Watson suspension is 11 games and a $5 million fine, Haslam spoke about second chances. He said the team gave running back Kareem Hunt a second chance, and that worked out well. But what the Browns did with Deshaun Watson isn’t just giving someone a second chance. It's rewarding bad behavior and putting the entire franchise at risk to do so.

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam wrongly compared Kareem Hunt to Deshaun Watson

After the announcement of the Deshaun Watson suspension, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam had a press conference about his quarterback’s situation. Reporters asked the truck stop magnate if, knowing what he knows now about Watson’s 11-game suspension, he would still make a deal for the QB again. Haslam said, “absolutely.”

Haslam then rhetorically asked, “Is he never supposed to play again? Is he never supposed to be part of society?” And then compared the Deshaun Watson situation to the second chance Kareem Hunt got from the Browns.

Comparing these two situations is like comparing apples to oranges.

Without passing any moral judgment on whether the Deshaun Watson allegations by 20-plus women are better, worse, or even comparable to Kareem Hunt’s domestic violence and assault allegations from 2018, Haslam has to understand that the “second chances” he gave these two players are very different.

After the Kansas City Chiefs cut Kareem Hunt, the Browns signed the free agent RB to a one-year, $1.1 million deal with no money guaranteed.

That is well below the market value of a back who put up just under 3,000 all-purpose yards and scored 25 touchdowns in his first two NFL seasons. Jimmy Haslam gave Hunt a second chance while not rewarding Hunt for his bad behavior. The owner also didn’t gamble the future of his franchise — and everyone in it — in the process.

On the flip side, the Browns owner did just that in the Deshaun Watson case.

Haslam traded away three first-round draft picks (and more) while also giving the former Houston Texans QB a historic, fully-guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal. The Browns' front office even brought his 2022 salary down to $1 million to reduce the impact the inevitable Deshaun Watson suspension would have on the player.

This is a clear case of Jimmy Haslam rewarding Deshaun Watson, despite his alleged actions against two dozen women. And he put his organization’s future in jeopardy to do it.

When the allegations against Watson popped up in March 2021, the quarterback was just starting a four-year, $156 million extension with $111 million guaranteed from the Texans. After sitting out a full NFL season, the Browns traded for Watson, more than doubled his guaranteed earnings, and gave up a tremendous amount of draft capital for the privilege of doing so.

With Watson, Haslam saw an opportunity to make his football team better by making a big gamble, and he took it. He had to make a deal that rewarded Watson’s alleged transgressions, and he did it, PR hit be damned.

NFL fans and media can think about Jimmy Haslam’s move for Watson however they like. But what Haslam shouldn’t be able to do is compare the true second chance the organization gave a publically contrite Kareem Hunt to the massive reward it gave to a still defiant Deshaun Watson.

The two situations are entirely different, and Jimmy Haslam shouldn’t be able to claim otherwise.

Contract figures courtesy of Spotrac