Arbitrator found NFL encouraged teams to collude regarding guaranteed contracts
With both the NFL and the NFL Players Association refusing to release a 61-page ruling by System Arbitrator Christopher Droney in the collusion grievance regarding guarantees in the contract of certain veteran players, two members of the media — Pablo Torre and yours truly — kept pushing. We had a friendly competition to see who could get it first.
Pablo won.
I'm glad he did. In the NFL media ecosystem, more than 90 percent of the 'journalism' isn't journalism at all. It's positioning for advance notice of an announcement that inevitably will be made. The real journalism (and the only real journalism) in this space comes from finding out the things 'they' don't want us to know.
And they (here, the NFL and NFLPA) didn't want anyone to know the outcome of the collusion grievance.
Although the NFL won, the NFL lost. As Droney wrote at pages 55 and 56 of the January 14, 2025 ruling, '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.'
In other words, the NFL wanted its member teams to collude.
That meeting happened only days after the Browns gave a five-year, fully-guaranteed, $230 million contract to quarterback Deshaun Watson. It also happened only two years after the NFLPA tried, for the second time, to make all player contracts fully guaranteed as part of the broader Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The league had fended off that effort, both in 2011 and in 2020. And the league didn't want to concede full guarantees on a piecemeal basis, with one team at a time giving players fully-guaranteed deals until they became the norm.
The league ultimately won because Droney found that the evidence introduced at the 2024 hearing did not prove, by a 'clear preponderance' of the evidence, that the teams accepted and acted on the encouragement of the NFL Management Council.
For anyone who has followed the inner workings of the league over the years, that's an astounding conclusion. One that defies common sense. Why have a Management Council if teams are going to ignore the things they encourage the teams to do?
Some would say it's stronger than encouragement. Some would say the encouragement of the Management Council must be followed.
We'll have much to say about the evidence and Droney's possible reasons for finding that, basically, the NFL was the gang that couldn't collude straight. For now, check out the latest episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, with yours truly riding shotgun, for more about what one source with knowledge of the proceedings described as the most significant ruling in American sports since 1994.
And both sides managed to hide it from everyone. For months.
Indeed, even though the NFL won, it was caught with its hand in the collusion cookie jar. The league was saved only by the fact that Droney believed no cookies were consumed.
Despite the pervasive crumbs.
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