So this is a legal question.
The fact that an NDA was provided at all indicates that the Texans were aware something was up, right?
Depends on what is meant by "something". For starters, what is their practice/policy for handing out NDA's?
Even if the texans are trying to maintain deniability in this issue, which i understand them wanting to do, would it not be an exceptionally weak argument "well watson came to us with a claim he was being blackmailed (best case argument), but we decided not to investigate it at all, and instead we just provided him with an NDA".
Depends on the facts. I have no idea how often players approach management with claims about members of the public or contractors causing issues. They are all very wealthy guys, many of whom are unsophisticated in terms of business, and unscrupulous people on the outside may seek to take advantage of that. My guess is the teams don't routinely send out investigators for every such incident. If there is a police report, or lawsuit instituted, a complaint made by the member of the public, or something that goes public, that's different.
But if he approach them first, they had no complaint from the member of the public, etc., then they probably aren't going to investigate, and may simply tell the player how to protect his legal interests. At that level, I don't believe it would be reasonable to conclude that the team knowingly did something wrong.
My own "guess" at this stage is that if the Texans believed Watson was engaging in improper conduct that could come back to bite him or the Texans in the ass, they would be far more likely to discourage him from doing that in the future than simply enabling it. That just seems like the more logical response to me, at least at that very early stage. But again, more facts are required.
In this context, the Texans
should be questioned about what they knew at the time the NDA was handed out, and asked what were their reasons for doing so. I'd like to hear the answer to that before speculating as to their degree of fault.
Otherwise, we're acting like a clique of 8th grade girls who live to gossip and rumor-monger before actually knowing the facts.