Multiple NFL players are exploring their legal options after the revelation of a 61-page arbitration ruling in the NFLPA’s collusion grievance against the league regarding fully-guaranteed contracts, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
Players could pursue action against the league (based on the collusive behavior described in the ruling) or the players’ union (based on their representation in the grievance). One of Florio’s sources specifically named Justin Herbert as an ideal potential plaintiff after the ruling revealed communication between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwell regarding fully guaranteed quarterback contracts.
The ruling first became public on Tuesday, more than five months after it was issued by league system arbitrator Christopher Droney. Still hidden, per Florio, is a list of 594 additional players who were included in the grievance behind Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson, and Russell Wilson. Both the timeframe and the scope of the ruling will play a fundamental role in the future of any new cases.
For Murray, Jackson, and Wilson, the case is decided. The NFL would likely argue the same is true for the other 594 players listed in the grievance, though the discovery process only covered the three quarterbacks. That could give credibility to an argument against the union that they did not properly represent all of the players who were party to the grievance.
The players not listed in the grievance could also have trouble launching cases of their own due to the 50-day window in the league’s collective bargaining agreement, according to Florio. That window has expired due to the apparent decision by the NFL and the NFLPA to keep the ruling out of the public eye when it was issued.
Clearly, this is a developing issue with unknown ramifications, but there is clearly potential for further action by players against collusive behavior within the league.
I am not a lawyer or collecive bargaining expert but why would filing for a suit should be under collective bargaining?
The CBA is a pretty large comprehensive document. It’s essentially the legal agreement between the NFL Goodell and the players union the NFLPA. It encompasses a lot of stuff including no collusion.
Which is standard business jargon. Gas stations can’t collude and set gas prices at 7 bucks a gallon. Grocery stores can’t collude and set grocery item at higher prices where doesn’t matter where you shop it’s same price anyways.
Filing a suit under collective bargaining means the union NFLPA believes the NFL violated the collective bargaining agreement and wants the courts to force the NFL teams to renegotiate contracts with better terms.
My perspective. Murray is lucky he got what he got. Signed for 230 got 160 guaranteed. This coming after an acl tear and reputation for not always being as studious as he should be.
Herber got 263 with 220 guaranteed. Made out like a bandit. M
You are conflating two different things- the illegal act of colluding and the results of corresponding salary negotiations. Collusion is illegal. Just because the results of the salary negotiations ended up being reasonably fair (and I agree with you that they were), that doesn’t change the fact that the owners attempted to engage in illegal activity, and for that they should be punished.
I commented on Murray’s and Herbert’s contract cause while yes the owners did attempt to collude if the nfl voids their contracts for instance as punishment for collusion I doubt either gets what they got going forward. I don’t see either getting as much guaranteed.
In what way have the owners been proven to have engaged in illegal activity? Because one texted the other congratulations and that it would help his own team? That may create the appearance of collusion, but the arbitrator has ruled against the idea of there being any, and this is not the smoking gun that it’s made out to be. Sure, thirty-two “independent” businesses can’t collude, but there has to be proven collusion, first. Unless I’m missing something that you may illustrate to me, I haven’t seen that yet.
The players have a much better target in either the NFL’s memo to the teams, which isn’t exactly collusion nor is it binding (as proven by Cleveland), but is still inappropriate. If anything, that would involve some rebuke of the NFL’s central organization more than an indictment of the individual owners, since that memo came from the league office. The second option i ms, of course, to attack the legality of the NFL’s entire in-house arbitration process to begin with (which is a rather ludicrous institution to begin with). Of course, that’s been tried and has failed multiple times in the past (how, I don’t know), so the chances are iffy for a favorable outcome; however, there may be something to be said for the force of numbers and bad press in this, and the players could have some better odds this time around.
I doubt that Herbert, despite the one who could be the actual “victim” in such a case, would choose to do so right after getting what ended up being a sizable deal (and one much more earned than Murray’s, in most opinions). But, if he does, the playbook seems to center around the same argument that the arbiter just rejected. The players’ only two remaining options, should they choose to pursue them, seem to be to go against the NFLPA for poor representation or to fight the process itself. The former might be subjective for little actual gain, and the latter has been defeated before.
For the record, I am for guaranteed contracts (I think they’re fairer to both teams and players, and I think that they’ll actually reduce contract sizes overall while providing better security at the cost of advertising clout for third party agents), and I am against the in-house arbitration process. I doubt not, however, see this ruling as a victory for the players claiming collusion. Granted, I’ve not read the near 600 pages of discovery, rulings, or arguments, but the evidence presented and paraded by Florio seems lacking to say the least and self-inflating to say the worst.
Appearance of collusion can be considered attempt at colluding
This isn’t your normal collusion where someone did something illegal like companies collude to raise gas prices on customers
The question at hand is did any owners (doesn’t have to be all 32) agree to attempt to recorrect the QB market after the DeShaun Watson deal.
Do I believe they attempted? Sure do. No way the standard practice of 100% guaranteed contract for a QB was going to be the standard going forward and I’m sure many owners GMs coaches front offices had plenty of conversations about not letting be the standard contract going forward.
Now do the texts between the cardinals and changes prove collusion took place well that’s more grey
I agree with most of your post, Easy, but I can’t say that the “appearance of” can be considered “an attempt at”. If something “can be” considered proof, it’s not proof.
The texts, on their own, are only useful in correlation with other elements that we don’t have yet. To me, the memo from the league is definitely worse and easier to point to as influence. You make a good point about not all owners needing to collude together, and even without an exerted effort, you can bet 31 of them independently came to the conclusion that the Watson contract was a bad idea for their business model.
Of course, now the question becomes what form the “collusion” needs to take. Does it take an agreement? Or is it just conversation? What we have now is the latter, which occurred after Murray’s contract (which therefore the conversation can’t apply to), and before Herbert’s (which, in theory, it would effect). I don’t think it’s collusive, because it’s a topic of common knowledge in the football world when a contract is announced, and it’s well known how big a deal the quarterback extensions are. Most importantly, there’s no agreement between the owners discussed. It’s just too easy to pass it off as congratulatory between colleagues, even if it’s something that would look much worse in another context (say, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare texting congrats to the CEO of BlueCross for getting a contract). In theory, they’re supposed to be competing with each other, but that’s hard to really take seriously with as centralized as the league has become.
We think of the league as naturally collusive, and it’s hard to remember that these are supposed to be, in theory, thirty-two independent businesses. As the Shield gets bigger, these businesses become more representative of a single entity. It’s probably better to just consider the league one business, and one monopoly, but they’ve spent years successfully fighting that for their own benefit. Big picture, yes, the league is naturally collusive. That’s why the league memo is much more damning to me-it shows that the league entices cooperation in matters relating to business practices and not just strictly the rules or discipline or what not of the game. The only coercive cooperation should, in theory, be for that purpose. The texts may show that, if some collusive agreement between owners were to be produced, that these two owners knew about it possibly (if the terms of that agreement correspond to the messages in some way). But, barring that, they only show an attitude, not an agreement. That’s not enough.
The NFL is the bigger and easier target, to me, since it’s not supposed to dictate contract practices to owners (at least, in terms of compensation or length; the CBA does give it leeway in other areas). However, in theory, the supposedly independent owners are supposed to make their own decisions. If a player doesn’t like an offer, he’s supposed to go somewhere else and get be able to get an independently considered one. If the league is telling owners to NOT do that, it’s a much better piece of evidence than two owners texting each other about a possibly naturally occurring common goal. They have a vested interest in keeping their cap space sound; the league really should not. The NFL shouldn’t care how much the Cardinals pay Murray or the Chargers pay Herbert. It’s really none of its business, and it shouldn’t encourage the supposedly independent other owners to care, either.
A CBA is a legally binding agreement between a labor union and the employer. It maps out the entire infrastructure of the employer-employee relationship- the parameters that instruct how much employees get paid, the funding of benefits, issues of paid/non-paid leave, working conditions, hours, and all of the various facets of employment. It also establishes rules for behavior, and the legal recourse when those rules are broken. Collusion is certainly one of those rules, and it’s why the CBA is the avenue that the players will have to take to enforce the rules. The CBA is like an administrative counterpart to the rulebook of play on the field.
As Andrew Brandt always says: “There will be lawyers.”
Good luck proving this. Just gonna be another talking point for months.
They kind of already have. Dummies like Dean Spanos and Michael Bidwell, the worst owners, on text exchanges gloating about it. If I was the big dogs in the league, I’d send in a special investigator to take their teams form from them because they just cost us a whole lot of money. In the end, the league will settle when they get sued, and the beat goes on. This might facilitate Goodell leaving earlier than expected too if they need to sacrifice him. What’s flying under the radar is the lackey that was hired as NFLPA director a couple of years ago. When I saw Goodell congratulating him like he was welcoming him to the league office, I knew the players were screwed on proper representation.
Goodell’s idea of a fair settlement: “Drop all litigation against the league and we will find you a place on our Olympic flag football team” 🙂
I mean I’d usually agree, but every league has guaranteed deals except this one. You’d think the vast dues they pay would have gotten this done by now.
Maybe they should be figuring out how to get their union to actually do something that gets them guaranteed contracts.
A good union would be focused on assisting players at the lower end of the salary structure but they aren’t interested in doing that because it gets them no glory. If your a player and want a guaranteed contract perhaps working harder and earning it would be a better approach than relying on the union to do the work for you.
Does Jerry Jones Lnow About This!!!
For every negative comment that’s ever been posted about the Browns giving a guaranteed contract to a QB there seems to be a hypocritical about face suddenly with thinking ‘players’ (employees) should be granted full guarantees.
Cracks me up. Yeah owners are rich, some players are richer than other players. $50+M per 18 week season is ludicrous. So both entities are out of control. Financing how many generations of family is necessary to be considered an equitable salary?
Arguments about ‘career ending injuries’ isn’t valid as many occupations of hourly employees have the same, or greater, risk without inordinate compensations.
So hit me up with your distain – I’m not sensitive about the stupidity of ‘sport’ financials and fanatics that consider their fandom a personal possession.
Sounds like you have gas bubbles in your head but are you trying to say that there should be some kind of law saying two people can’t sign a contract that is binding on both sides because you don’t have a contract for 12 month of drive thru service at McDonald’s?
What I’m saying is ‘guarantee’ and ‘employment’ are not valid in any sector of the working world.
I’ve never been ‘guaranteed’ wages unless I put in work first and even then I have been stiffed more than once by employers and contractors.
Oh and I’m one of many that do not ever purchase items from your ‘fast food’ maggot stops.
W2 employees who have never had an employment contract probably shouldn’t weigh in as experts in contract law.
I’ve no understanding of any ‘job’ that guarantees employment and therefore ‘guaranteed salary’ where you can’t be fired or laid off.
Having had many hourly rated jobs and yearly salary employments none were ‘guaranteed’ in that I couldn’t be unemployed at any moment, even those under a union umbrella.
Exactly why you shouldn’t weigh in with your alleged experience.
You’ve never had an employment contact with any quarantines. I understand that. What you seem to struggle with is that many people do. The world that exists outside of your personal experience is significant. Learn to assume you’re only aware of some of it and the statements you make won’t be so embarrassing.
Move to North Korea, J.O.
That’d require funds for transportation I never obtained because of a lack of guaranteed salary
Your retort make zero sense
Won’t be long before the term “strike” starts getting thrown around. Wait until the talking heads run with that one.
I doubt players who are non starters are so determined to have their contracts fully guaranteed that they would vote for a strike action. Many of them are on 1 or 2 year deals anyway
Collusion between the league and the union?
Neither actually care about the fans who ultimately have to pay for their greediness.
actually, we don’t have to pay for anything.
Hey jorge78 I always thought they were Called SHYSTERS !.