What what what? Wait and see? Evidence? Defense? Watson might not actually be guilty of anything?
This has now fallen into the court of public opinion.
If I was tasked with running PR/Crisis Management here, and try to take control of the national narrative, I would assess if these women were sex workers or not. Lots of sex workers are on social media. It's not a huge secret. It could be all of these women were sex workers. Or some of them. Or none of them.
What Watson needs right now is other men to come forward, men who are not linked to him, his career, the NFL, his sponsors, his former university, his family, nothing. And these men need to say Woman X who accused Watson, I paid her for sex.
Why would those men do that though? They risk public embarrassment and being targeted themselves. And unlike Watson, they may not have his kind of financial warchest to fall back on.
The other consideration is, under the scenario that some or all of these women were sex workers, there's a good chance they were involved with other professional athletes, making it even harder for someone to come forward.
For Dynasty owners (this is not assessing guilt nor innocence nor right nor wrong, this is what will determine what actually happens) -
Part 1 ) Watson would need this counter narrative to happen to about 20 percent of his accusers. This would enough to lay enough doubt to have some kind of career. Outside of that, his career in the NFL is over.
Part 2) The "Hail Mary" from a PR perspective is for Watson to come out as bi-sexual. It could be true or maybe not. It would require another person, a male, to come forward. Then Watson would become the highest profile bi-sexual NFL player in league history. That's a narrative that can be spun. I'm looking at the blue print in my head, and I could spin that into salvaging a career in the NFL ( i.e. "I paid for sex because I felt fear for being the true me, but I'm not afraid anymore" ) , but Watson simply may have less skilled people working for him or his attorneys on his roster. If this doesn't happen soon, his career looks over.
Part 3) On the wing and a prayer that Watson somehow survives this and keeps playing (NFL owners would need to trade forward the first female NFL GM and some semblance of women in the coaching ranks, but unlike MLB, they don't have a Kim Ng waiting in the wings) , he would need to go a non major market. The NFL won't let him go to NY, Miami, LA, Dallas, etc, etc. He would need to wait 6 months then marry a non celebrity. ( Big Ben got caught up in this kind of packaged deal to move past his own scandal long ago)
Key indicators will be Watson entering into some kind of sexual addiction rehab program.
The first press release by his owner and by the Commissioner will be the biggest clue on what future dynasty value Watson holds in fantasy football.
If you see an immediate distinction in speech between Watson as a player versus the person, then he's done. No matter what else is said, he's done. That's standard spin control for a controlled dump.
Watson's representation, Athletes First, will have some problems here. No matter how wayward the player, it's their job to manage any kind of media optics. They couldn't seal off this story and that's going to be held against them. "That's not fair though" Well, it's not supposed to be fair, it's just how it works. Their job is to protect the client from others, but mostly, to protect him from himself. Every major agency has a cadre of fixers. It's their job to clean up even the filthiest messes.
This situation was a failure on multiple levels. If women were actually harmed, that's unacceptable. But there is a wider context here, besides the shock jock marketing on social media, in terms of fallout for the league itself, real football and fantasy.
CTD is an industry term for "Circling The Drain". I.E. there is a exponential rate of diminishing returns to try to reset this narrative. This is very likely past the point of no return. Dynasty owners take note. Holding is still the best long shot value play. However, if you are committed to the dump, wait and sell at the first "counter narrative", the point where Watson's people make their hardest push, through media back channels, to make it seem like the NFL might give him another chance.