Deshaun Watson has been suspended for six games

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Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. Can't have enough Bull Durham in our lives. It's the Adam Gold Show. I'm Adam Gold. Dennis Cox is here. Welcome to your Monday.

We've got a lot of stuff to do today. I watched Top Gun last night. The new one? No, not the new one yet. I don't believe it's available at home yet, right?

It hasn't shown up on Amazon Prime or anything like that yet. Because I think it's still killing it in the theaters, right? Wasn't Maverick, Top Gun Maverick just still doing big time work in the theaters?

It might be. So my 13 year old did not seen Top Gun. So we thought, all right, we're going to eventually see Top Gun Maverick at home. So let's watch the first one. And I had forgotten. I mean, I had seen it, you know, here and there, but it's not one of my favorite movies anyway. I'm not even sure I'd put it in my top five Tom Cruise movies, but it's a. It is so what, like early 90s tastic. Just think, oh, gosh, it's just this cheese dripping off of it all over the place.

I'd forgotten how. What a young Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan was fantastic in the movie.

How did she not win an award? Anyway, there's so many so much white teeth in the movie. Everybody's got perfect smiles in the movie. Bunch of oiled up guys, man with short hair.

Aviator sunglasses. It's tremendous. But we watched that. We watched that yesterday.

So I don't know. Whenever Maverick Top Gun Maverick shows up on Amazon Prime, we'll probably watch it at home. But that's what we did yesterday. So all the movies you need to hear about and talk about are right here. We had a lot of things to do today. The NFL got their Deshaun Watson news, so we'll get to that.

We've got the passing of an absolute sports legend yesterday in Bill Russell. We're going to work in some college football talk, some ACC football talk as well. And we will check out what's going on in Panther Town as well. We are now into week two of the Panthers training camp, and I believe they're in pads tomorrow for the first time. I don't think they're in pads yet. Today actually. Is today the first time?

Okay. I've been hearing different reports. I guess they're not doing pads in Cleveland yet.

I don't know because we're going to talk a little bit about Cleveland as well. But we have another we have a brand new controversy in the NFL. Have you heard about the Guardian cap? Yes, I have seen said cap.

Gosh, people are losing their minds over the Guardian cap. They ate them. Yeah, I mean, I could see why some people don't like it. They do look funny. They do look a little goofy. They do look funny. I'm not going to I'm not going to lie. Like some from a Mel Brooks movie.

It looks no. Do you remember Kazoo from the old Flintstones? Yes, Flintstones cartoon. You know, they Kazoo was like this alien that came down.

It just kind of floated, you know, over Fred or Barney, whoever Kazoo was floating over. It reminds me of the Kazoo helmet or who was a Greg Kelso, who was a safety for the Buffalo Bills back in the day whose helmet looked like it was five sizes too big. It's just a protective shell on top of the helmet that is supposed to keep people safer. It does appear that they're going to be wearing them in games.

Or is it just practice just practicing? No, no, not during the regular season. I think it's they're supposed to wear them through week two of the preseason. So I don't know if they're going to be wearing them in games or not. I think just during practices only two of the preseason.

Why then why wouldn't we always wear them? Okay, we'll talk to Will Brinson about that a little bit later on. Adam Gold in studio with my friend Coach Pete DeRuta with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement. Coach, how does longevity risk figure into our retirement and income plan?

This is the best of times and the worst of times, Adam. The longevity risk means we're going to live too long. But to me, every day I live is not too long.

Right, absolutely. So we want our money to outlive us. And unfortunately, many people have seen you out there listening, maybe one of them, your money is not designed to outlive you. You might outlive your money.

And that's not what we want to have happen. Because when we get to that day after you run out of money, it's not going to be a fun time. So let's design a plan that guarantees you'll never run out of money. We call it the GPI plan, Growth Protection Lifetime Income, for the next 10 people. This is a golden ticket, Adam. A thousand dollar value, we're going to do it at no cost or obligation. And all you have to do is call. We make it so easy.

Would you like financial independence into your retirement and beyond it? 800-661-7383, that golden ticket is a $1,000 value. Or you could text ADAM to 21000 for Coach Pete DeRuta. With that said, the NFL got their verdict and they aren't happy. So the NFL wanted Deshaun Watson's suspension to last a full year for violation of the league's personal conduct policy.

Did not go according to plan. Six games, no fine. They were actually negotiating with the Watson camp.

I mean all the way heading up, I think through the weekend. And the least amount of games the NFL would offer in a suspension was 12. And a fine that was reportedly in the $8 million range. That is not what happened. It was a slap in the face that Sue L. Robinson, a former district court judge, handed down today.

She's a retired judge, but she was the arbitrator. And this is not what the NFL wanted to hear. Dominique Foxworth from ESPN and Anscape on how the union is looking at this. The most important thing for the union is always to try to protect the rights of all the players. And no individual case is the case that they are necessarily fighting.

So while they are defending Deshaun Watson right now, it's important. I think for them right now is what they want to do is kind of set this precedent that no one appeals back to Roger Goodell. And to kind of move the power away from him into in this particular case into Judge Sue Robinson's hand. So that's all I think they're receiving this as a step in the right direction, because the penalty came down as the way it was supposed to from a third party that was agreed upon by both sides. But from here on out, I think their fear is that we're going to get in a situation where all things get appealed to Roger Goodell anyway.

And so we end up in a similar system to how it was before where he kind of had all the power. We're going to get to that part in just a second. Michael Wilbon from PTI and ESPN is a little surprised.

It's shockingly late. We sort of got a hint at this yesterday when hearing that from the NFL, you know, P.A. that it sounds like it suggests heavily they weren't going to appeal, which means they had some sense of it. But trust me, if they had been a two year suspension, of course, they would never have even hinted they would not appeal. They would be ready to jump on the field for her decision to be six games to me.

Given given what we know and we do, we haven't heard from her and I don't know that we will. But it just seems shockingly light. The Cleveland Browns have to be and Deshaun Watson have to be thrilled with getting a six game suspension. Six games does seem a little light.

Ryan Clark from ESPN with his reaction. It shouldn't matter who he's playing week seven. It's about getting this right and doing the right thing by all parties involved. I do believe this is low as what I was expecting the NFL to hand down to Deshaun Watson.

And now I think we are entering into an even touchier situation of perception, perception and money. The NFL wants to continue to grow the game if they believe that this has in some way hurt them from doing that. I believe that they will attack Deshaun Watson further, not necessarily just because they want to see the suspension or a fine levied, but because they want the perception of the NFL to be is that we care about women more than we care about the game.

Well, good luck. I completely on board with what Ryan Clark had to say, but good luck convincing women of that. Yesterday, the Players Association and Watson put out a joint statement saying that they would abide by the decision of former federal judge Sue Robinson. They would not appeal and they challenged the NFL to pledge the same. Now, maybe they just assumed that this suspension would be lighter than what the NFL wanted.

Certainly they they guessed right. And if that's the case, they were applying pressure ahead of time that the NFL would do what they did, would simply say, hey, whatever Judge Robinson hands down is fine. Now, should the NFL wish to appeal the decision on length of suspension and anything that comes along with it, the sides, if you will, could be left to the discretion of the commissioner, Roger Goodell.

This is something Dominique Foxworth alluded to, and he continues his point here. My expectation is that the league will appeal it and will probably try to extend Deshaun Watson's penalty. I think that the players, the union has what they think right now in this neutral like arbiter.

They have something that is closer to fair and that's where they want to keep it. I think Roger Goodell would be better served keeping it there, honestly, going forward, because you never want to get in the situation that they were in under the previous CBA, where every penalty was coming at the feet of Roger Goodell in which we then pass moral judgments on Roger Goodell. At this case, Roger is in a position where he can say, well, we sent it to a judge and they made this decision and we're going to stand by that. I don't think Roger wants to go back in a world where we're spending our morning after penalties deciding whether Roger Goodell did it right or wrong when obviously he's not trying to do anything like that.

All right, here's my my feeling on this and Dominique Foxworth is as smart a dude as you're going to find. If if it were up to me, if I were Roger Goodell, the last thing I would do, no matter how how much I feel like Judge Robinson got it wrong, I would not appeal the suspension. I think it would be a terrible move for the league to do that, because as what Dominique alluded to is that it's really becomes up to Roger. So there's no impartiality. If Roger Goodell is doing this, no impartiality at all.

Roger farms it out. Maybe it's the same outcome. So if they go to an arbitrator and Roger says, I'm not doing it, we're going to get this other arbitrator. To rule on Sue L. Robinson's ruling, maybe it's the same thing. If I were Roger Goodell and I were mad at the decision, I would simply use the court of public opinion.

I would simply hold a press conference. No, we're not going to appeal. We respect the decision of Judge Robinson. But here's why this is worse than so many of the other things that drew suspensions in the past. Ezekiel Elliott, three-time domestic violence accused, right, by his girlfriend when he was at Ohio State. Six games, not reduced. Ben Roethlisberger, six-game suspension reduced to four for essentially, you know, borderline kidnapping a girl in a bar in Georgia. Right? With help.

I had somebody stand in guard. Tom Brady was suspended for four games for maybe, probably deflating footballs. Four games. Ray Rice was suspended, too. It eventually became an indefinite suspension when the video surfaced of him slugging his wife in an elevator in Atlantic City. And you know how many — you know what the punishment for Dan Snyder was for years of grotesque behavior as the owner of the Washington Commandos. Nothing.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry. They fined a multi-billionaire $10 million. Yeah. And they took away ownership of the team and gave it to his wife. What?

Yeah, the ability to run day-to-day operations. Right. So here's where I go to this part of the story. Here's where we might surmise that the NFL got the verdict they deserved. Right?

Follow me on this. And this is not about what Deshaun Watson did. Deshaun Watson is, at best, a serial creep. Like, I don't even know if I would call him a predator, but my read on the situation is that this is how Watson gets down. Right? Puts himself in situations where he's getting a massage from, you know, credible massage therapists and, oh, the towel fell off. And see what happens. That's my read on it.

I call that a serial creep. And that's what the NFL was fighting against here, right? But the NFL has, in their recent history, just an awful record of policing this type of behavior. An awful record. And Sue Robinson probably guessed that, hmm, if the NFL were to do this on their own, this is probably the suspension they'd hand down.

I mean, I'm not saying she's right. I'm just saying, I think you could justify that as the response based on the NFL's past behavior in these types of settings. And I think it was a stroke of brilliance that the crux of Watson's defense was, hey, these owners get away with this crap all the time. Now, they used in Robert Kraft's situation with the massage parlors in Florida, right? They used that as part of their defense. Because Robert Kraft, I think, might have gotten a fine, if anything. Now, the two situations are not in any way similar.

But he didn't get fined. I mean, basically, Robert Kraft was ordering off the menu. You know, some things that were not on the menu. Because they can't be. But, like, those things are common.

Deshaun Watson was doing these things in private, and he was not really ordering off the menu. Anyway, 24 lawsuits were filed. 23 of them have now been settled. The 24th will be settled. 30 lawsuits were filed against the Houston Texans.

All 30 have been settled. None of this is good for the league. The decision from the judge, Sue Robinson, not good for the league. But if I were Roger Goodell, I'd just move on. I would just move on.

Take the L and move. All right, one more thing before we start the program. Yesterday, and I thought this would be the top story until we started finding out that the Deshaun Watson decision would come this morning. Bill Russell passed away yesterday, age 88. Dennis, when we talk about the greatest player in the history of basketball, the debate generally comes down to two people. It comes down to Jordan, and it comes down to LeBron.

If you had to surmise why, second time I used the word surmise today, might be the first in the history of sports radio. Wow. If you had to venture a guess as to why people, like, revert to Jordan over LeBron, what would it be? Championship. Right. Six. Undefeated 6-0 in NBA finals. Okay, LeBron's got four and he's lost a bunch. What about Russell? He's got 11.

Yeah. 11 NBA championships. The last two, he was the player coach.

Like, Red Auerbach was not the head coach in 68 and 69, it was Russell. Five-time MVP. And this is my favorite stat. 21 times in Bill Russell's career, either in college, in the Olympics, or in the NBA, his team faced a do-or-die game. Win, stay alive, maybe win a title. Lose, season over. 21 times, he is 21 for 21.

Imagine never losing the game that could end your season. Wow. That's Bill Russell. That's impressive. That is crazy.

That's impressive. So, but if you listen to the people talk about Bill Russell, it's never about the basketball. It's about everything else. Victor Robertson, one of the greats of all time, a contemporary of Russell's, talked about that. Bill went through a lot of different things when he was playing ball from the Boston Celtics and the way he was living it, how he was treated and whatnot. And it got to be a point, I talked to him on several occasions about this, he was just a man's man, you know. He did things to help himself and help his people. He got involved in a lot of civil rights situations, which people didn't do at that particular time.

He had the stage, he had the background where he could do this and get away with it. And Bill went through a lot. And I don't think really the majority of the people in this world today really understand all the things that he and his family went through and what he went through as a basketball player playing with the Boston Celtics. I read a story over the weekend, actually it was retweeted, I didn't read the whole story, an excerpt of a story that was retweeted by Howard Bryant from ESPN. And the story is that Russell had his home vandalized and essentially somebody defecated in his bed and wiped it on the walls. This is after winning a title, in Boston.

Yeah, I mean, this is what he had to deal with. Jackie McMullen covered Russell and we take it, again, more along the lines of it's more than just basketball. I would say the most important and impactful, or one of the most important and impactful athletes that ever lived. Certainly the most impactful basketball player. But you can't begin to, and I don't say that because he won at every level, which he did.

I don't say that because he won 11 championships in 13 seasons, which will never, ever, ever be duplicated. I say it because in the face of all that was so much to lose, John. This man was a fearless civil rights activist at a time when our country was really very racially divided. Particularly, by the way, in the city he was playing in. And he didn't talk to talk, man.

He walked the walk every step of the way. So imagine being in a city like Boston at the height of the civil rights struggles and being an activist. The famous photo of Russell with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jim Brown supporting Muhammad Ali in his fight to avoid military service based on religious reasons. Regardless of what you think about the ultimate fight that Ali was waging. That resonated with a lot of people and angered as many others. He was willing to put himself essentially, to use a phrase, this is obviously not literal, in the line of fire.

He was willing to do that. And it impacted the rest of his career. It impacted the rest of his life.

And I'm not even sure, I was thinking about this yesterday. Is there another athlete that has, is there another athlete that really compares to what Russell had to go through? Team sport athlete, city like, it could be Boston, could be New York, could be Chicago. That had a checkered relationship with that city and also is revered by that city. Not that I can think of.

Not instantly off the top of my head. Just in terms of performance, the way Jordan is probably revered in Chicago works. But it has nothing to do with anything other than basketball.

Nothing. And to be fair, I was trying to explain this to my son who is a big NBA fan. The Bulls really are not that great a franchise.

Overall, no. Their success is essentially a decade. That's it. The Knicks go, gosh, you guys have done nothing. It's just a joke against at the Knicks expense. Because at least the Knicks were, I mean, good and challenging in the 60s and 70s. But man, the Bulls just, I mean, not a great franchise at all, except for that Jordan era.

That's it. But I don't, I mean, Russell is just a special, special guy. They named the Finals MVP award after him. And he has been there giving out the award forever. And that's a big loss.

It's a big loss for a lot of reasons, but he meant a lot to a lot of people that had nothing to do with basketball. This is the Adam Gold Show. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $700 on average and those savings add up. Imagine what you could buy in the future. Hey, remember how 20 years ago I switched to Progressive? Well, now it's the future and I used all those savings to buy this new hologram phone. Because, you know, it's the future and everything is holograms now. So switch to Progressive and save big because those savings can add up in the future. Progressive Cash