Last summer, the NFL world was aflame with discussions of collusion.
The NFLPA had filed a grievance years earlier alleging that teams worked together to stop a push for fully-guaranteed contracts after the Deshaun Watson deal. The grievance went through the league’s arbitration process, which eventually resulted in a ruling against the union that was initially kept under wraps. It became public in June 2025, contributing to the storm of scandal surrounding the NFLPA at the time.
The union filed an appeal, but a three-person panel upheld the arbitrator’s original ruling in favor of the NFL, per Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. This includes the finding that the league encouraged clubs to collude to suppress fully-guaranteed contracts, which supports the NFLPA’s case. However, the appeals panel also agreed with the arbitrator that there was not sufficient evidence to show that teams actually participated in the alleged collusion.
In short, while the NFL attempted to collude as alleged, the union could not demonstrate a strong enough impact to trigger damages and a ruling in their favor. The appeals panel concurred with that result.
One key difference, Florio notes, is that the appeals panel believes that teams were aware of the league’s collusive intentions.
“We cannot fathom these sophisticated businesspeople did not comprehend they were being encouraged to limit or reduce guaranteed contracts,” the ruling states.
Former NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell did not immediately communicate the initial arbitration ruling to the union’s membership. His successor, former Browns center and NFLPA president J.C. Tretter, approached the appeal differently, promptly informing the NFLPA player representatives of the result. He included the above quote in his message (via Florio) to show that the union had, in part, proven their case.
Now, the grievance is technically done with, but the outcome still offers the union some leverage heading into CBA talks. They now have an arbitrator’s ruling, confirmed by an appeals panel, affirming that the league intended to engage in collusion to limit player contracts. That can help inspire firmer support among players as they negotiate several key issues, including a proposed 18-game regular season. It may also draw the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice for potential antitrust violations, Florio adds, which could also force the league to include certain labor protections in the next CBA.
One problem with the Watson contract (of many) is that it was so off the deep end more guaranteed money than any team had ever given any player that even if there was collusion (and that might be the case), it still wouldn’t take collusion to keep teams from approaching those levels of guarantees again for several years. If someone buys the three bedroom home next to mine for $25 million, my home is going to keep going up in price at a normal rate and that other purchase is not going to be seen as a driver of the market.
Watson, Cousins, and others who clubs want to move on from are reason enough to avoid guaranteed money from the team side. As long as teams want players to sign badly enough, the guarantees will be there. As long as void years can stretch out the cap impact, the guarantees will be there.
As of now there is $1.3B worth of dead cap space, much from void years but also from players that no longer fit into the team’s future plans.