When there is a big story where you feel like your team comes out on the right side of it, it can be fun to go back and relive the saga via documentary. When it comes to the dark journey of Deshaun Watson’s legal entanglements a couple years ago, along with the football ramifications, the Houston Texans undoubtedly came out the other side a better franchise.
During those two years, the Texans were certainly pulled into the fray on more than one occasion, at times depicted (incorrectly, in my opinion) as an enabler for Watson’s alleged transgressions in various massage settings throughout the Houston area. In the end, they wound up with three first round picks from the trade that sent Watson to Cleveland, where his contract and level of play torpedoed the Browns for years to come.
So when I saw that KHOU was dropping a documentary on the stations KHOU+ app, I was excited to relive the Texans’ trade victory over the Browns, and the slow descent into football hell for Watson. I came away from the 54 documentary feeling partially satisfied. Here are my thoughts on the program, which is available right now on the KHOU+ app:
If you’re looking for a strictly legal review of his downfall, this is very, VERY detailed
The sense I get is that KHOU set out to reset the entire legal saga, and barely more than that. The 54 minutes is all content from KHOU news reports at various times throughout the Watson saga, with KHOU anchor Ron Trevino steering the ship, introducing each clip. If you’re a fan of Tony Buzbee or Rusty Hardin, they actually appear in this feature more than Watson, at least it feels that way. The documentary goes deep on the accumulation of plaintiffs, and the near miss Watson may have had in being charged criminally. Again, from a legal recap perspective, the show is really good.
If you’re looking for any semblance of football, this may not be for you
There is one small segment, probably three or four minutes long, where Jason Bristol, KHOU sports anchor, presents some brief football angles, showing Watson at Texans 2021 training camp, mentioning the trade to the Browns. However, the documentary fails to convey the extreme awkwardness of Watson at that 2021 camp, and doesn’t even gloss over the magnitude nor the difficulty of pulling off the trade with the Browns. Additionally, I thought the documentary could have been set up better from the beginning by spending a few minutes showing exactly HOW important Watson was to the Texans’ franchise at the time of these lawsuits, perhaps using some highlights and mentioning that he’d just signed a $156 million contract in September 2020.
There are hardly any outside opinions or perspectives woven into the documentary
Aside from various rehashing of the KHOU team’s legal expert’s opinions on the lawsuits themselves from back in 2021 and 2022, there were no current day vignettes from anyone whose covered the Texans or was part of the team during that time. There were old reports of angry fans at NRG Stadium from the day of Watson’s debut as a Brown, which ironically took place in Houston. I felt like some current day opinion or perspective on some of the matters in the documentary might have spiced it up a bit.
SUMMARY
Again, if you’re looking to relive the legal saga of the civil suits and aborted criminal charges, this program is meticulously detailed. You’ll like it, especially because it moves pretty quickly without glossing over any of the legal portions of Watson’s saga. However, if you’re looking for the chance to relive Watson’s “downfall” from an actual football perspective, there’s very little there. If KHOU was going for the “just the legal stuff” as their mission, then they hit a home run, I’m just not so certain that that stuff pops more than the football stuff. I am interested in BOTH, so overall, it was a decent use of 54 minutes of my time.
GRADE: B
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