Atlanta Falcons apparently weren't close to landing Deshaun Watson

Last year, the Atlanta Falcons were reportedly so close to landing Texans QB Deshaun Watson. The belief was that a deal was in place for the superstar quarterback to land back in his home state of Georgia but the Cleveland Browns swooped in with a massive offer that the Falcons would not match, thus why he wears orange on Sundays rather than red.

However, recently, owner Arthur Blank completely flipped the story upside down by saying that they didn't think Watson was a good fit.

Arthur Blank states that the Atlanta Falcons dipped out of the Deshaun Watson race last offseason

Everything we thought to be true, wasn't actually true, at least according to a pretty reliable source in Arthur Blank. He has clarified that the Atlanta Falcons did their due diligence on Deshaun Watson, both on the field and off the field, and ultimately deemed that he wasn't a good fit for the organization.

"“I think we explored the one last year, which is what our responsibility was, we didn’t explore it deeply, deeply. We spent some time on it from a legal standpoint, personal standpoint, value standpoint on the player, and a variety of things. Soon after we got into exploring, we decided it wasn’t a very good match.”"

- Arthur Blank via The AJC

While I would like to fully believe this statement, I don't know that I can. It seems awfully convenient considering all the criticism the Falcosn have received for pursuing Watson but not Lamar Jackson. Not to mention, why did it take over a year for us to find this out? It just seems fishy.

Now I don't think he is lying but I believe he is leaving out the all-important timeline. He states "soon after we got into exploring, we decided it wasn't a very good match", but what does "soon after" mean exactly? It could mean one week or one month. And then saying "it wasn't a very good match" could be referring to the contract that the Browns offered Watson that the Falcons didn't want to match. It might have been a 'good match' if the Browns had stayed out of it and didn't raise the price.

The things Blank said are all relatively, and frankly, confusing. All those reports we heard during the whole saga had to come from somewhere. It is hard to believe things wouldn't have been clarified by now if all those reports were completely wrong.

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