NFL encouraged owners to cheat players out of guaranteed money
In March 2022, the Cleveland Browns signed the quarter-Arrière Deshaun Watson to a $ 230 million over five years fully guaranteed. A few days later, the NFL encouraged teams not to continue the tendency to fully guarantee contracts in the future. This is a clear case of collusion among the 32 groups of owners of the NFL, but none of the parties wanted to see it prove to be, and the referee judged that it was a large notorburger, so he remained buried.
Tuesday, Pablo Torres de Pablo Torres discovers And Mike Florio de Pro Football Talk published information saying that the NFL had collunioned, but the referee essentially said it was good.
Let’s move on to what it means.
What is collusion among the owners of the NFL and why is it bad?
The collusion among the owners of the NFL is the place where the 32 ownership groups all decide that they will implement a policy through the League without it being negotiated in the collective negotiation with the union of the players. In this case, it unfairly prevents money guaranteed from being on the table in the contracts.
NFL players contracts are not fully guaranteed
NFL contracts are not guaranteed by default and that the language must be added in the negotiations. If a player is cut without guaranteed money who remains on his agreement, the teams do not have to pay him. In most cases, if a player is cut with guaranteed money that remains, the team must pay it. By colluing so as not to fully guarantee the contracts of the veterans, it is a violation of the agreement and deliberately keeps the money of the players.
All the other large sports leagues have fully guaranteed contracts, for the record.
It should be noted that the NFLPA has put pressure for all contracts to be fully guaranteed in the last CBA, but they could not include these conditions in the agreement signed in 2020.
Why did the referee said that this case was not a collusion among the owners of the NFL?
According to Florio, referee Christopher Droney wrote in his January 2025 decision according to which “there is no question that the NFL management board, with the blessing of the commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL clubs to reduce the guarantees of the contracts of veterans at the annual meeting of the owners of March 2022”.
What the NFLPA could not prove is that the owners of the NFL really followed the advice. Feels like a fairly thin line while literally none of the contracts signed from Watson has even been close to the warranty. (This excludes contracts of choice in the first round, which are fully guaranteed in the collective negotiation of the League and a pair of second rounds in 2025.)
Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Russell Wilson and many players with massive quantities of leverage have come to the negotiation table since. Allen has the most guaranteed money at $ 147 million, but it is more than $ 80 million less than Watson signed in 2022. Allen came out of a MVP season and still could not get closer to Watson who came out of enormous controversy and had not played football for more than a year.
He did not succeed in the odor test, which is why Florio has been digging since 2022.
What evidence did NFLPA have a collusion among the owners of the NFL?
In the 61 -page decision, there are copies of text messages between team owners referring to funds guaranteed in contracts and celebration when a team was able to deliver a new agreement with lower guarantees.
The owner of Los Angeles, Dean Spanos, sent a text to the owner of the Cardinals of Arizona, Michael Bidwell, about their QB – Kyler Murray and Justin Herbert contracts, respectively. Bidwill said that the cardinals had been able to limit the guaranteed money and that Spanos replied that this would help him the following year.
More Bidwell in Spanos:
“I think many teams will be satisfied once they have had the opportunity to review. Cleveland really messed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guarantee relatively “low”. “
Why didn’t the NFL want this collusion case to be public?
The referee said the NFL had tried to end, but couldn’t. Not exactly an excellent look when you cannot collect your 32 property groups.
Nor does it make sense to rub the nose of the NFLPA in the decision when they are about to negotiate an 18 NFL game season. It seems bad for future negotiations and they were clearly wrong in this case despite the legal decision.
Why didn’t the NFLPA want this case of public collusion?
There are in fact several reasons why the NFLPA would not want this advertisement despite the sneaky tactics used by the NFL. The most important thing is that the NFLPA has not proven that collusion has led to the expected result, although there are many anecdotal evidence that owners of the league have reduced the guaranteed expenses. Great failure.
There is another reason that has not been stated in the referee’s report, but was detailed by Torres. There were documents and testimonies that seem bad for the NFLPA brass as regards their conversations on the players, in particular the president JC Trettter.
Russell Wilson signed a new agreement with the Broncos de Denver in September 2022 and it was the first high -effect QB contract negotiated after Watson. The agreement was $ 242,588,236, but only $ 124 million was fully guaranteed at the signature – barely half of the total value and a significant departure from Watson despite their use of similar evaluations over five years.
When Wilson did not put pressure for a fully guaranteed contract the day after Watson’s signature, some in the NFLPA did not like this, with the president of the NFLPA, JC Trette, calling Wilson names by SMS. While Watson established the previous one, Wilson was a key test case to maintain it and in the eyes of at least Tretter, he failed not only himself but on other players.
Wilson’s team used money guaranteed instead, but it has never been triggered because Denver cut Wilson’s ceremony just two seasons in its passage with the Broncos. They were on the hook for $ 124 million, emphasizing why fully guaranteed money is better than future rolling guarantees.
Apart from two second round choices in 2025, no player was even close to adding a complete warranty to a NFL contract from this meeting.
