Shady talks did happen behind closed doors.
In what is being hailed as a monumental reveal, an independent arbitrator wrote there is “little question” the NFL management council, with the blessing of commissioner Roger Goodell, “encouraged” teams to reduce guarantees in NFL contracts during a 2022 owners meeting.
However, the arbitrator of the 2022 lawsuit by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) alleging collusion by the league and its owners ruled there is not evidence to verify that collusion occurred.
“There is little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veteran’s contracts at the March 2022 annual owner’s meeting,” the ruling reads, as revealed by reporter Pablo Torre.
“However, the evidence did not establish a clear preponderance that the Clubs agreed to do that or participated in such a scheme. There are many Clubs whose only connection to his proceeding is the attendance at the Owners’ meeting, and the expert evidence of aggregate and average changes in various measure of spending, guaranteed and otherwise, is not sufficient, even when considered with the other evidence presented, for the NFLPA to meet its standard of proof.”
Torre, the host of the popular “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, and Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio both described the reveal of the NFL imploring its owners to act in a certain way as significant.
Florio wrote that one source called it the “most significant ruling in American sports since 1994.”
Another source told Torre: “It’s almost like the holy grail for the union. Here’s 61 pages of gory details about how the league really works, thanks to an independent judicial arbitrator. You should be screaming about this from the high heavens.”
The lawsuit in question is from 2022, when the NFLPA alleged that the teams and league violated the collective bargaining agreement by colluding to not offer players fully guaranteed contracts following the highly controversial, fully guaranteed $230 million deal Deshaun Watson signed with the Browns in March 2022.
It called for damages and for certain quarterbacks — Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray — to have their contracts voided.
“The NFLPA bases its claim on the fact that no other quarterback or high-profile player signed a fully guaranteed contract after Browns’ quarterback Deshaun Watson signed his contract last March,” read a memo filed that October by Jeff Pash, currently the league’s EVP, general counsel. “The NFLPA argues that ‘[t]he expectation was that fully-guaranteed contracts would now become the competition driven norm for the players in the League, including quarterbacks, negotiating new contracts.'”
Pash noted in the memo: “We are aware of no evidence supporting these collusion claims, which we will vigorously oppose.”
The NFL and NFLPA refused to reveal the Jan. 14, 2025 ruling from arbitrator Christopher Droney, per Florio, but the 61-page document has finally been unearthed thanks to Torre.
While Droney wrote how it overwhelmingly seems the NFL told its teams to act in a certain way, he did not void the contracts nor award the NFLPA money.
“While the NFL Management Council encouraged the 32 members Clubs of the NFL to reduce guarantees in future contracts with prayers at the March 2022 annual meeting of the Club owners,” Droney wrote, “the Clubs did not join in such a collusive agreement and did not act in accordance with one as to the three quarterbacks named in the initial arbitration demand or to other veteran players.
“Accordingly, I dismiss the arbitration demands of the NFLPA in its entirety.”