The Layoff Beard

Extended Thought ▪ About This Brandon Marshall Story

By Matt Sussman | Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

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Outside The Lines is generally a very well done show that peruses sports stories that don’t involve Xs and Os, or who to add on your fantasy roster, or why LeBron James doesn’t shake anyone’s hand after games and how that’s DISRESPECT, y’all. No, they actually cover stories that they perceive to be slightly more important, if not of the human interest variety, and that’s pretty much what they execute.

But in a recent one that ran on SportsCenter in its entirety, OTC took a gander at Brandon Marshall’s history with his former lover. It looks like the Broncos wide receiver routinely abused and physically fought with his then-girlfriend Rasheedah Watley. This is, obviously, a terrible thing to do, and nobody would probably argue otherwise.

Here’s the problem.

We have a woman trying to get her life back together, parents demanding justice, and conflicting police reports where basically Watley and Marshall kind of say, “the other one started it!” It’s a classic he said/she said situation. It would belong on Maury if it wasn’t done in the OTL style of research, questioning, and obtainment of police reports. But in its irreducible form, it’s still a boyfriend and girlfriend who stayed with each other too long, resulting in hardship and fingernail scratches for everyone.

Here’s the climax of the series of altercations:

March 26, 2007: Police in Douglas County, Colo., arrested Marshall for false imprisonment and domestic violence. Watley told “Outside the Lines” she was assaulted by Marshall a day earlier at Marshall’s suburban Denver home — she never reported that incident to police — and that she was attempting to fly back to Atlanta to get away from Marshall. Watley told police she and Marshall argued at the Denver airport and that she later agreed to return to Marshall’s home. Watley told police when she attempted to leave Marshall’s home a second time, Marshall followed her taxi and, at one point, blocked its path with his Dodge Charger, leapt from his car and punched the taxi cab’s windows. When contacted by “Outside the Lines,” the cab driver confirmed Watley’s version of events. Marshall denied punching the taxi cab’s windows and later told police he was only trying to retrieve his cell phone, which he said Watley had taken from him.

Almost every other incident, including a knife wound, ended with “No charges were filed.” I mean, there was a whole another year’s worth of arguments and police calls before it looks like they finally stopped having contact with each other. I can only imagine if OTL documented all the petty, unnecessary arguments I had with my ex-girlfriends.

It’s good to see they’re not still together, because that would be a terrible ending, unless of course it was a story about persevering through adversity and how one gave the other a kidney. But no, it’s just a high school sweetheart courtship gone sour through the journey of life.

It was also, how shall we say, very one-sided. Is it possible that Watley is a wonderful human being inside and out, and Marshall is just a satchel of feces? Yes, it’s possible. But the report was so one-sided, I wasn’t informed otherwise.

Now all I need is an investigative reporter to give me a timeline of how an investigative report goes from the boardroom, to the field, to the cutting room, and finally to the screen, so that viewers can find the exact moment in the process the reporters realized the story was going nowhere.