Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson was a healthy inactive for the team’s season-opening win over the Jacksonville Jaguars last week.
Houston opted to keep Watson on its 53-man roster despite the star quarterback requesting a trade early during the offseason and an ensuing probe into allegations of sexual assault and/or misconduct surrounding the Pro Bowler.
The backdrop here includes rumors linking Deshaun Watson to interested teams. With that said, it remains highly unlikely that Watson will be moved until more clarification comes as it relates to the north of 20 allegations he’s facing and the ongoing criminal probe into the matter.
According to A.J. Perez of Front Office Sports, it’s “looking more unlikely” that any criminal probe into the allegations will be completed ahead of the November 2 NFL trade deadline.
This is certainly a new piece of information as it relates to the Watson situation. He’s yet to be charged criminally. Rather, the allegations against last season’s NFL passing yards leader have been civil in nature thus far.
Will Deshaun Watson be forced to sit entire 2021 NFL season?
In clearer forms, this report suggests that the grand jury handling criminal complaints against Watson won’t reach a decision ahead of November 2.
Perez reports that there’s still a chance a team trades for Watson without the grand jury coming to a decision. Most indications conclude that said team is the Miami Dolphins. However, we’ve been unable to confirm that.
It remains highly unlikely that any team would make a move for Watson without some sort of a conclusion being reached, both from a civil perspective and through a criminal lens. It would just be too much of a risk. That doesn’t even take into account the possibility of a PR disaster.
Meanwhile, Houston would have to take well below market value for Watson in order to trade him before a completion of the criminal probe and civil cases. At this point, there’s no suggestion that’s going to happen.
For now, it remains highly unlikely that Watson will make his way to the field at any point during the 2021 NFL season. In his stead, Tyrod Taylor led Houston to a season-opening win over the Jacksonville Jaguars and seems comfortable replacing Deshaun Watson.