While it’s flown largely under the radar, behind the scenes, the NFL has been dealing with a grievance from the NFL Players Association regarding fully guaranteed contracts for prominent veteran quarterbacks.
The case was resolved last week with little reporting on the matter, with an arbitrator filing a 61-page written ruling.
According to Pro Football Talk, the NFL has cited a confidentiality order that applies to the arbitration as the reason for the lack of widespread reporting on the subject. However, the confidentiality order doesn’t prevent either party from publicizing the arbitration’s result. Its purpose is solely to shield the process from scrutiny while the arbitration is being looked into.
However, the league and Players Association are both electing to conceal the arbitration’s outcome, but Pro Football Talk has managed to find out some of what the arbitrator ruled.
The league did in fact encourage teams not to do fully guaranteed contracts, however, the evidence connected to the quarterbacks central to the case, Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson, and Kyler Murray, wasn’t strong enough to trigger damages, per PFT’s sources.
This result gives both parties a victory of sorts. The Players Union was able to prove that there was collusion, while the league proved that there were no damages.
The two sides are set to clash again soon. The NFL is looking to increase the regular season schedule from 17 games to 18, which the Players Association is almost assuredly going to push back on out of concern for player safety.
It’ll be interesting to see who wins the next bout.
