Aaron Wilson had been covering the Houston Texans for years, so it was no shock that he was all over the Deshaun Watson story. Unfortunately for him, he took his comments a little too far and now he is out of a job because of it.
Wilson, who covered the Houston Texans beat for the Houston Chronicle since 2015, was fired this week following an appearance on Boston sports radio network WEEI where he compared the multiple women currently suing Deshaun Watson to terrorists, amongst other things.
Wilson was asked if these lawsuits were a “money grab” and he agreed with that while going as far as to call the whole thing “ambulance chasing.”
“There are no charges,” said Watson. “Yeah, it’s a money grab. It started out that way. And then once the lawyer put it out after [Watson’s camp] didn’t want to acquiesce and pay the money demands, then they put out a call for more, and that’s what he’s trying to do…[Tony Buzbee’s] trying to attract more cases. It’s ambulance chasing.”
“Deshaun Watson is a guy that is highly respected. I’ve known him for four years and, you know, been around him, not just at the stadium, but at charity events and social settings…”
“I’m skeptical,” said Wilson. “Let’s put it like that…I wanna be careful. I’m not dismissing that it could be true, in that, I wasn’t there. The people that know what happened are him and those alleged women, who haven’t put their name on it. It’s all Jane Doe…There’s no way to vet it. There’s no way to really look into it…just because someone is accused of something that doesn’t mean they did it.”
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Wilson eventually paired the idea of paying the accusers to negotiate with “terrorists.”
“In his case, you know, it’s kind of like you don’t, you know, you don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Wilson said, attempting to explain the notion that players with impeccable reputations are more likely to pay to make allegations like this go away. “You know, people are demanding money, they’re asking for money. The…it kept escalating, it kept going up and up and up. And you start talking about more and more funds, I’m not gonna say how much it got to. But my understanding is, you know, that there was an admission that, it was, you know, something, you know, just that this was, you know, just a money grab.”
Houston Chronicle held a meeting on Friday to inform the staff of Wilson being fired.
“A source told Defector that at 5:30 p.m. on Friday members of the sports department received a Zoom invite email titled, “Sports staff meeting.” During the meeting, which lasted about 10 to 15 minutes, the source says that Chronicle sports editor Reid Laymance told staffers that Wilson was no longer employed by the Chronicle. Laymance didn’t discuss any specifics regarding why Wilson was no longer employed, and he did not mention Wilson’s coverage of the lawsuits. He did tell reporters that they needed to be mindful of what they say on other platforms.”
