Catch Smith Photo: Getty Images
Somewhere in the beginning of his career as a head coach, Lowe Smith received the label that he is a pretty good man. Maybe because he went to church. Maybe because he has soft orders when he talks. He definitely won the respect of his players, although this is not indicative of many. Lowe certainly never blew up the press or hung a player to dry. Maybe that’s all it takes in the NFL, where the bar is at an unlimited height.
Certainly the job as head coach of Houston Texas came to Lovi pretty quickly and he may not have had time to come to terms with everything he involves. Or I would say that if I were nice. And it’s also kind of a confusing situation where Deshon Watson is worried because he’s staying in something like a football purgatory. The Texans really can’t officially remove him, because the union will give up and he hasn’t been convicted of anything. On the other hand, he is accused of assaulting / abusing 22 women, which is appalling. I guess the Texans could claim to have picked up the needle in the best way, not allowing him to play, but not stopping him from starting a fight with the NFLPA. I would not pretend to know the right answer. What I do know is that this is not from Smith.
“I just know Deshon is a great player,” Smith told a news conference on Wednesday. He continued:
“Great players have to play somewhere in the NFL. We hope this happens and if it’s not with us, it’s somewhere else and I’m sure … as I see it in this situation, in the end we will both take advantage of the situation and I just can’t wait to speed it up a bit. “
Breath.
The question has never been whether Watson is good or not, and frankly the quality of a player’s career is too often used as an excuse to ignore anything he has done off the field. If they throw a lot of yards / score a lot of goals / win a lot, then for the most part almost every wrong step off the field is pushed to the periphery, if not completely off the board. The debate was never about whether Watson was good, but about what he was accused of and whether this type of people lost the privilege of playing in the NFL.
Which means no, Lowy, Watson doesn’t need to play anywhere. It may very well be that he has to play nowhere, depending on how his legal and civil cases are resolved and what makes the NFL out of it. It is hard to imagine that 22 different accusations will simply disappear into the air. Although the NFL probably didn’t understand the hint of the inconvenience and vomiting that Ben Rotlisberger received in his last weeks at work, we certainly did. And the league probably realizes, at least vaguely, that it doesn’t want to do it again, at least not so soon. Which is probably why the Texans haven’t found business partners … yet. Watson could very well lose the right to play, and he deserved it.
How each country will benefit from all this is another mystery, but so far Lowy had just mixed up the words as soon as they came to his mind, and just prayed that they would form a sentence and relate to the subject.
Lovi has been here before. He was the head coach when the Bucks chose the lizard James Winston №1 as a whole. Again, Lowy’s hands were somewhat tied, as he was only a coach, and GM would always stick with Winston, so Lowy had to keep up with his job. Which only works for one season anyway. But quotes like this certainly don’t put Smith on the right side:
“But then there was a serious accusation that we had to deal with. [The accusation that he sexually assaulted a Florida State student, Erica Kinsman.] This has been investigated three times. No charges have been filed. I understand that something happened. But when do you get to the point where you say, “We have to let the courts decide, and we follow their decision?” They didn’t accuse James of anything. And at this point, I will decide that I will not hold this incident against him. “
We know why he never made it to court. That’s because investigators wore Florida T-shirts while examining him.
This is Lovi, always happy to have the job he has, and the one from Texas is probably his last. So happy, in fact, that he will look at the other side of almost everything.