The National Football League has a long history with collusion — defined as a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others. In a 1934 league meeting, owners of all the member clubs acted together to prevent Black players from playing in the league, and that ban lasted until 1946. In 2019, Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, two NFL players, settled with the NFL in their collusion suit that claimed the league had blackballed them for their political protests.
Owners have acted in concert against the best interests of the players throughout the league's existence whenever it suits them, so it shouldn't be a surprise that in a recent ruling, it was found that teams — with the knowledge of Commissioner Roger Goodell — colluded at the 2022 owners meetings to stamp out any fully guaranteed contracts for players.
The ruling, dated January 14, 2025, which was first unearthed by longtime journalist Pablo Torre and can be found here, had its origins in the five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract the Cleveland Browns gave quarterback Deshaun Watson after acquiring Watson in a trade with the Houston Texans. The NFL's other owners weren't upset with the deal because it turned out to be a ridiculous contract, or because Watson was an alleged serial sexual abuser. They were apoplectic about it because the very idea of the fully guaranteed contract is something that has kept team owners up at night.
As most NFL fans know, the standard NFL player contract has all kinds of loopholes teams can use to get out of them if the desire arises. And the Watson contract has hamstrung the Browns in ways they likely never imagined.
In the original lawsuit, the NFLPA alleged that the collusion at that owners meeting prevented three other quarterbacks — Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, and Lamar Jackson — from possibly getting their own fully guaranteed deals. But the thing about collusion is that it's generally very hard to prove. Still, the NFLPA sought financial relief on behalf of the 594 players who received partially guaranteed contracts in the 2023 league year.
The hearing was held in New York City over 10 days in July and August, 2024. League executives, several team owners, and Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson were among those who testified.
Per System Arbitrator Christopher F. Droney, who oversaw the proceedings, the NFL asserted that the NFLPA's claim on behalf of veteran players with partially guaranteed contracts. should not be permitted on various grounds including that it is procedurally barred and not authorized under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The NFLPA alleged that prior to that meeting, "a high-ranking executive in the League office asked an NFL owner to initiate a discussion with the other owners about not agreeing to large Player Contracts with fully-guaranteed salaries like Watson's," and that this topic was discussed during the subsequent owners' meetings.
On March 20, 2022, two days after the Watson contract was signed, Jeff Pash, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the National Football League, sent an e-mail to Goodell in which an upcoming slide presentation for the owners meetings was discussed.
From Pash:
We discussed guarantees, signing bonus commitments, etc., on Thursday and Friday. What we don't know yet is whether we are seeing what ·we saw the last two years, where the very top players (for example,, Miller, Rodgers, Stafford, Watson) got large guarantees, but many other players (second-tier free agents and below) signed much more club-friendly deals. As the top of the market clears and the next tier starts to sign, we will have a better sense of whether the large guarantees are extending further into the free agent pool and also how they are affecting club deals with their own players. It is certainly something that we will want to discuss at both the football ops sessions and with the owners as well.
Goodell's response:
Agreed, but the tip of the market is most of the dollars and if we wait to see how it falls, it will be too late to counter. Agree with raising with a big concern that this will erode a key aspect of our CBA that resisted guaranteed money except as clubs determined on their own.
Pash responded that "We will definitely be prepared to raise it and make sure that people are focused. The next tier of signings is generally slower (as you of course know) so I think that we will be ahead of it when we speak to the clubs."
Yes, collusion is hard to prove, but when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... this does seem to indicate prior harmful intent to prevent players from receiving guaranteed contracts.
This was the talk track over the slide presented to the owners at the meeting regarding guaranteed contracts in particular:
Ultimately, we think that leads to less flexibility when constructing your rosters. Continued proration and guarantees, which may become proration through conversions will often beget more proration in future years. as those Salary Cap changes stack. It is a short-term solution that if left unchecked can create long-term problems and enter a Club into a cycle that is difficult to escape.
When this happens, Clubs effectively have to live Cash over Cap because of the proration of Signing Bonuses. We expected the League to be Cash over Cap in 2021 in order to manage the Salary Cap decrease, but staying above 100% in perpetuity effectively grants the players a higher percentage of [revenue].
Lastly, if guarantees continue to grow in both amount and number of players, then there is a risk that they become the norm in contracts, regardless of player quality. That not only has the potential to binder roster management, but set a market standard that will be difficult to walk back.
Of course, all Clubs must make their own decisions. But continuing these trends can handcuff a Club in the future.
One might imagine that the "all Clubs must make their own decisions" proviso would prevent a collusion claim in the future, at least in the minds of the NFL.
Where it gets interesting is that in the hearings, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank testified, and this is the summary of what Blank said:
Blank testified that he generally remembered the meeting and the discussion of the slides. He does not recall a "message" that a continued increase in signing bonuses would hamper the fl.exibi1fity of clubs in managing their rosters, and he believes that it would be contrary to what the presenters normally deliver and contrary to the notion that every club should make decisions for themselves.
He said he was sure that be later spoke with Falcons personnel about the presentation though he also could not recall when. He did not discuss the reduction of guarantees with his staff. and hearing the presentation did not cause him to reduce guarantees. for his team.
But something caused the Falcons to take a rather strident tone regarding their interest in Lamar Jackson. As Jackson and the Ravens continued to try and hammer out a new contract in 2023, things got a bit fractious, and at one point, Jackson stated that he wanted to be traded. The Ravens placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on Jackson, which meant that any team choosing to negotiate with Jackson from there would have to give up two future first-round picks for Jackson's services, in addition to the contract Jackson ultimately got. As Jackson was seeking a fully-guaranteed contract, you can imagine how that went. Several NFL teams made public statements via reporters that they were not interested in trading for Jackson, and the Falcons did so on their own website.
The Ravens went into the 2023 draft assuming that Jackson would not be on their roster, but on April 27, 2023 — the day before the draft began — the team sent Jackson a five-year, $260 million contract with $133.7 million in guarantees. Jackson quickly agreed to terms after stating for months that he wanted a fully-guaranteed contract.
Jackson wasn't the only quarterback to be under the thumb of the anti-guarantee philosophy. When Kyler Murray signed a five-year, $230.5 million contract extension with the Arizona Cardinals on July 21, 2022 in which $103.3 million was fully guaranteed, Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill received a text from Los Angeles Chargers owner Dean Spanos.
DS: Congratulations on signing Murray
MB: Thanks Deno! These QB deals are expensive but we limited the fully guaranteed money and have some pretty good language. Thankfully, we have a QB that's worth paying.
DS: Your deal helps us for our QB next year
MB: I think many teams will be happy with it once they have a chance to review. Cleveland really screwed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guaranteed relatively "low."
On July 25, 2023, the Chargers signed Justin Herbert to a five-year, $262.5 million contract extension in which $133.7 million was fully guaranteed.
The cat was in the bag. But Droney's ultimate ruling was odd.
"While the NFL Management Council encouraged the 32 member Clubs of the NFL to reduce guarantees in future contracts with players at the March 2022 annual meeting of the Club owners, 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," Droney wrote in his explanation as to why no financial relief was appropriate for the players in question.
Droney characterized the Bidwill/Spanos text exchange as an acknowledgement that other teams would look to the Kyler Murray contract as a benchmark for future quarterback negotiations, and nothing more.
"These communication are more in line with 'independent responses to common stimuli or mere interdependence unaided by an advance understanding among the parties,' than a participation in a collusive agreement," Droney wrote.
"Finally, the interests of the NFL teams suggest that any reduction in guarantees, even if they did decline using measures showing averages in 2023, is not indicative of concerted action," Droney also wrote. "Of the owners who were specifically asked about it, all denied being part of a collusive agreement, and l credit their testimony. Several explained that Clubs act independently because they are all in fierce competition with each another, and therefore it would be unlikely for them to agree to act uniformly on contracts,"
Which betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the NFL's history of collusion. Yes, teams are in competition with each other, but ultimately, their owners are all in it together to make as much money as possible, and to keep enough of the revenue as they can while still fielding the best teams possible. The concerted elimination of guaranteed contracts goes a long way to making that goal a systemic reality without giving the players the full measure of their own economic opportunities.
In this case, the league wanted an arbitrator who would be faithful to their cause, and the league seemed to have gotten exactly that.
Would Lamar Jackson, or any other other NFL players, have a case to be made upon appeal of this judgement? We may never know, but the legal arguments in favor of the NFL — while also admitting actions in concert — are shaky at best. The NFL never wanted this ruling to be made public, and the hope within the league is undoubtedly that the news will float away very quickly.