NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's office should be mandated to examine this Justin Tucker case exactly as it examined that Deshaun Watson case. Period.
The NFL is watching.
And being watched.
In 2022, Deshaun Watson was suspended 11 games and fined $5 million for violating the NFL's conduct code. ... all due to a mountain of allegations from massage therapists that he was guilty of sexual misconduct.
The Cleveland Browns executed a blockbuster trade with the Houston Texans for the services of the then-superstar quarterback ...
And the results have been awful.
We will never know if Watson's decline as a player is tied to the sex scandal.
Nor can we know for certain if all-time-great kicker Justin Tucker struggled this year as a member of the Browns' rival Baltimore Ravens because he was aware that similar allegations against him were looming and destined to go public.
But now they have. And the NFL under commissioner Roger Goodell will be charged with getting this right - "right,'' to fans of the Browns, anyway, meaning that Tucker should face the same exact scrutiny and possibly be dealt the same exact punishment as Watson.
Tucker has spent an NFL life being seen as relatively perfect and pristine has been accused of inappropriate behavior by six massage therapists.
The allegations are serious enough that they now have the attention of the NFL.
"We first became aware of the allegations from the reporter investigating this story as they were not previously shared with the NFL," a league spokesperson said in a statement. "We take any allegation seriously and will look into the matter."
The Baltimore Banner published a piece on Thursday detailing the sexual misconduct allegations.
Tucker, a likely future Hall of Famer who is arguably the best kicker of his generation, has denied the allegations, releasing a statement on X claiming innocence and nothing that he had never before been accused of inappropriate behavior.
"I have never before been accused of misconduct of any kind, and I have never been accused of acting inappropriately in front of a massage therapist or during a massage therapy session or during other bodywork," Tucker wrote. "I have never received any complaints from a massage therapist, have never been dismissed from a massage therapy or bodywork session, and have never been told that I was not welcome at any spa or other place of business."
Do those words sound familar? To Texans and Browns fans, they do ... as they essentially come from the same playbook used by Watson as he and his attorneys worked to talk their way out of trouble.
The defenders of Tucker, 35, will argue that he's played in the NFL for 13 years and he has never been accused of anything like this before.
The NFL will hear that plea.
But somebody should point out that before the Watson stuff hit the fan, he was viewed in Houston as a team leader and a community leader, using his celebrity to champion the cause of Habitat for Humanity ... as he himself was a child beneficiary of the program.
We really still don't know exactly "how guilty'' Watson ever really was.
We may never really know exactly "how guilty,'' if at all, Tucker really is.
But Goodell's office should be mandated to examine this case as it examined that case. Period.
