Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson shared in an Instagram post on Friday that his father has died, two days prior to the Browns’ Week 1 opener against the Dallas Cowboys. Further details were not immediately available on the passing of Watson’s father, Don Richardson, nor how it affects Watson’s status for Cleveland’s first game of the season.
“Rest in Peace Pops,” read a short message by Watson.
Watson had spent much of his life estranged from his father, who left the family when he was young and left mother, Deann Watson, to raise him as well as three siblings. In 2017, Watson told the Houston Chronicle that he only remembered seeing his father “maybe five” times while growing up in Gainesville, Georgia.
“My mom was basically my mother and father, so I didn’t really pay too much attention to it,” Watson said at the time. “My friends had fathers. But for me it was just kind of, ‘Hey, my mother is the one that I’m going to rely on and I’ll always focus on.’ ”
Watson, a former Pro Bowler and National Championship-winning quarterback at Clemson, is in a pivotal year in his career after suffering a broken bone in his throwing shoulder midway through the 2023 season. Despite becoming one of the biggest stars in the NFL early in his career, Watson has played in just 12 games since the 2020 season after a saga that saw him hold out the 2021 season after becoming disgruntled with the Houston Texans before being suspended for much of the 2022 season due to multiple accusations of sexual misconduct.
