NFL and NFLPA kept hearing results private for months but NFL teams clearly were colluding
In the annals of Cleveland Browns history, the trade and contract for QB Deshaun Watson will be ranked in the vicinity of Art Modell’s betrayal of Cleveland when he moved the Browns to Baltimore. Those two, along with “The Drive” and “The Fumble,” are negative parts of Cleveland sports history that will never be forgotten.
Watson’s contract was highlighted by it being “fully guaranteed” at a level unheard of prior. The NFL has been adverse to fully guaranteed deals, including a continued issue with second-round picks in this year’s NFL draft, but Watson impacted Lamar Jackson, among others, in ways that we are learning more about years later.
According to a report by Pro Football Talk and Pablo Torre, a hearing that was concluded in January found that the NFL “encouraged” colluding among NFL teams following Watson’s contract:
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.
Despite that specific language, the NFL won the arbitration hearing because the NFLPA did not prove collusion at the level required (“clear preponderance”).
There are so many details about the NFL’s attempt to restrict guarantees in contracts in a way that would be considered colluding. PFT notes that the NFLPA has fought for fully guaranteed deals in each of the last two Collective Bargaining Agreements but lost and that the NFL wanted to stop teams from slowly guaranteeing player deals one at a time so that it would not become the norm.
In the end, the NFL has gotten what it wanted and did not lose in the hearing. Watson’s $230 million is still, by far, the most total guarantees in a contract and no player with a contract totalling $100 million or more has more than 72% of their deal guaranteed.
You can listen to all the details as Mike Florio of PFT and Torre talk in the video podcast below:
Does it surprise you that the NFL tried to collude after the Watson deal? Should the NFL (like most/all contracts in the NBA and MLB) have guaranteed deals in your opinion?
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