Second round is current battleground for fully-guaranteed contracts
The collusion grievance, which found that the NFL/Management Council encouraged teams to violate the CBA, flowed from an effort to limit the spread of fully-guaranteed contracts. And there's an ongoing effort to limit the spread of fully-guaranteed contracts.
The vast majority of all 2025 draft picks have signed their four-year rookie deals. In round two, 30 of the selections have yet to sign.
The problem is that, for the first time ever, a second-round pick has gotten a fully-guaranteed contract. It started with Texans receiver Jayden Higgins, the second pick in round two. That sparked a fully-guaranteed contract for Browns linebacker Carson Schwesinger, the first pick in the second round.
For the next 30 picks, nothing has happened. Obviously, the players and their agents want as many of the deals as possible to be fully guaranteed. The teams want to draw the line as close to the third pick in round two (Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori) as possible.
There's no colluding to be done, since the common goal of limited guaranteed deals is obvious. Still, it's the current battleground when it comes to whether the full four years of a contract will be guaranteed.
None of the players will take something less than a fully-guaranteed deal below Emmanwori, because they don't want to be responsible for ending the run of fully-guaranteed deals. And every team will want to be the one that successfully held the rope and won the full-guarantee tug-o-war.
Eventually, someone will have to blink. It'll probably start later in the round, with players who wouldn't expect to get a full guarantee anyway. And then it could work its way up the ladder.
At some point, a player is going to insist on a fully-guaranteed deal and the team is going to insist on not fully guaranteeing the deal and there will be no middle ground.
In a roundabout way, the mere existence of this problem proves that collusion, if it's happening, is far from universal. The Texans created the predicament by becoming the first team to give a fully-guaranteed contract to a second-round pick. If all 32 teams were in cahoots on a plan to limit fully-guaranteed contracts, the Texans never would have done that.
However it plays out from here, one thing is clear. There won't be any emails or other written communications encouraging the teams to resist giving players fully-guaranteed deals. Documents like that nearly created a major problem for the NFL.
It would still be a major problem, if the NFLPA had any inclination to capitalize on the leverage they've secured.
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Jim Harbaugh, Warde Manuel added to Michigan class-action lawsuit over Matt Weiss scandal
The fallout for the University of Michigan and the ongoing Matt Weiss computer access crimes scandal is continuing to escalate. A class-action lawsuit has long been filed by some of the victims in Ann Arbor back in March 2025, with 11 female student athletes, along with victims from other schools, seeking damages from the university, given Weiss's alleged crimes happened on campus, using school resources. Now, former head coach Jim Harbaugh and athletic director Warde Manuel are among those being added to the suit, according to multiple reports. According to both the Associated Press as well as The Detroit News, Harbaugh, Manuel, former U-M presidents Santa J. Ono and Dr. Mark Schlissel were added to the civil lawsuit, with the lawyer for the group of 'Jane Does' taking particular umbrage over a lack of action by the former Wolverines head coach. Via The Detroit News: (subscription required) 'Harbaugh led and encouraged a culture within the football program that resulted in a complete lack of oversight or protection for non-football student athletes,' the lawsuit alleges. 'Had Harbaugh implemented basic oversight of his staff, plaintiffs…would have been protected against predators such as Weiss.' Harbaugh, Manuel and others failed to act to protect students, the lawsuit alleges. 'Naming Head Coach Jim Harbaugh and Athletic Director Warde Manuel in this complaint reflects our belief that leadership at the highest levels either knew of these threats or deliberately ignored them, prioritizing athletic prestige and profit over the safety and dignity of students,' one of the women's lawyers, Parker Stinar, said in a statement. According to The Detroit News, this is one of 13 civil lawsuits filed against former Michigan quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss since it was revealed that the United States Department of Justice was bringing charges against him. After Weiss's indictment, Harbaugh had commented on the situation when asked about it at NFL owners meetings: 'It was after the TCU game that we — that I found out, we found out, that there was allegations,' the Los Angeles Chargers head coach told the Detroit Free Press' Dave Birkett on Monday in Palm Beach, Florida, at the NFL's annual spring meeting. 'And you said it, I mean indictment, that's not a word that — sympathy for the victims and for Matt's family. It's shocking.' According to the AP, the suit alleges that Harbaugh had known, as there was a staff member who had seen Weiss accessing 'sensitive' information on Schembechler Hall computers in late-December 2022, just days before the team traveled to Phoenix to face TCU in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. 'Had Harbaugh implemented basic oversight of his staff, plaintiffs and the class would have been protected against predators such as Weiss,' the updated lawsuit states. 'Instead, Weiss was a highly compensated asset that was promoted by and within the football program, from which position he was able to, and did, target female student athletes.' The lawsuit says a staff member saw Weiss viewing private information at Schembechler Hall, headquarters for the football team, around Dec. 21, 2022, and reported it before Michigan played Texas Christian University in a playoff game days later on Dec. 31. Like any court case, it is also true that the plaintiff must meet the burden of proof to indicate that the newly-added parties were privy to Weiss's dealings behind closed doors. Weiss's house was raided by the FBI in January 2023 and he was subsequently suspended by the university. Michigan terminated Weiss on January 20, 2023. Maize & Blue Review's Josh Henschke had discovered the police report during that interim week which had short detail on the intent of the raid, while The Detroit News' Angelique Chengelis had noted the December 21-23 timeline of the Michigan staffer's discovery of Weiss's doings on the same day, January 17, 2023.
