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Sports fans always seem to joke about their league being rigged or unfair. During the most recent NFL season, fans accused referees of calling more penalties in favor of Patrick Mahomes. But one bombshell report from Pablo Torre reveals that the NFL encouraged teams to collude around veteran contract guarantees.
Torre, with some help from ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio, broke the news on Tuesday after obtaining a 61-page ruling by System Arbitrator Christopher Droney.
The ruling was related to a collusion grievance by the NFLPA. It came following a closed-door meeting in the wake of Deshaun Watson's $230 million fully-guaranteed contract. Essentially, Torre and Florio point to one part of the ruling as proof that the NFL encouraged teams to collude in an effort to avoid further fully-guaranteed contracts.
“There is little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans’ contracts at the March 2022 annual owners’ meeting,” the ruling reads.
Florio called out the NFLPA for keeping this bombshell collusion ruling a secret for the past five months.
“The far bigger question is why would the NFL Players Association not trumpet this ruling? The union should have been shouting it from the rooftops,” Florio argued. “They’ve finally proved that which had been suspected for years — that the quarterly meetings are (as former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith calls them) “collusion meetings.” The details are unprecedented, and the takeaway is unmistakable.”
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Florio presented a few potential reasons why the NFLPA did not come clean about this collusion ruling.]
First, Florio argues that current executive director Lloyd Howell has a different approach for securing gains for the player's union. Howell did not file this collusion grievance and may not have felt the need to be loud about the result. Especially because the NFL technically came out on top.
Second, Florio suggests that the NFLPA could be protecting its president J.C Tretter. Tretter reportedly criticized former Broncos QB Russell Wilson for not signing a fully-guaranteed contract after leaving Seattle. Those text messages are present in the arbitration ruling.
Florio explains that Tretter could have plans to move up in the NFLPA, so it could benefit him to keep those comments secret.
Either way, it will be fascinating to see how both the NFLPA and NFL respond to Torre and Florio's reporting. This reporting could also have an impact on future deals between the league and the NFLPA.
