Final outcome of collusion case continues to be confusing

In two different rulings issued less than 15 months apart, the internal grievance system created by the NFL and the NFL Players Association found that, essentially, the NFL invited its teams to collude on the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts but the teams did not accept.

The first part is stunning, and in many ways unprecedented as it relates to the NFL. In response to the Deshaun Watson contract (five years, $230 million, fully guaranteed), the league sounded the alarm at the 2022 annual meeting.

From the notes of the presentation made to the teams in March 2022: "[I]f guarantees continue to grow in both amount and number of players, then there's a risk that they become the norm in contracts regardless of player quality . . . That not only has the potential to hinder 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 long into the future."

The teams, per both the arbitrator and the three-person appeal panel, ignored this invitation/advice.

The appeals panel recognized that the teams will never admit to collusion, and that circumstantial evidence is "the coin of the[] realm" when it comes to proving it. The panel, however, found insufficient circumstantial evidence to prove that collusion occurred.

The panel dismissed expert testimony regarding the decrease in signing bonuses and guaranteed salary after the league invited the teams to collude. The panel rejected the basic, commonsensical idea that, if the league invited them to restrict guaranteed contracts and if guaranteed contracts were thereafter restricted, the teams must have followed the league's advice.

It's a myopic assessment of the real world that borders on the obtuse. The 32 teams operate as a league. They enjoy an antitrust exemption as to the player workforce through a multi-employer bargaining unit. The Collective Bargaining Agreement allows the teams to give players guaranteed contracts. The mere fact that the league would even broach the subject of the teams choosing to not do something the CBA allows them to do is, as the panel found, "improper."

What other proof is needed to show that the league and the teams colluded?

Beyond that, the appeals panel acknowledged that the text-message exchange between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill after the Cardinals managed to avoid giving quarterback Kyler Murray a fully-guaranteed contract was "inappropriate." The panel somehow found that Spanos thanking Bidwill for "staying strong" when it comes to not giving Murray a fully-guaranteed contract was not proof of collusion but of an "isolated incident."

Some would call that "isolated incident" a "smoking gun."

The appeals ruling ignores the evidence of internal communications within the Broncos organization regarding their negotiations with quarterback Russell Wilson. From the original arbitration ruling, owner Greg Penner told other members of the team's ownership group that “there’s not[h]ing in here that other owners will consider off market (e.g. like the Watson guarantees).” Later, Penner told his partners that G.M. George Paton “feels very good about it for us as a franchise and the benchmark it sets (versus Watson) for the rest of the league.”

Why would or should the Broncos care what other owners think? The mere fact that the concern was on the radar screen shows that the Broncos were worried about running afoul of the wink-nod understanding that teams would hold the rope on the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts after the Watson deal.

Although the panel did indeed find that the league invited teams to collude, what choice did it have? The NFL didn't just say the quiet part out loud. It put it in writing! Anyone who understands how the NFL works knows what the message was, and how it was received. The Spanos-Bidwill texts confirm it, as do the internal Broncos communications.

And while the Ravens, per the panel, did indeed offer quarterback Lamar Jackson a pair of three-year fully-guaranteed contracts, he didn't accept them. He wanted a five-year, fully-guaranteed deal, like the one Watson had gotten. The Ravens, to paraphrase Spanos, "stayed strong."

Did the NFL invite the teams to collude? Yes. Did the teams thereafter accept the invitation? Hell yes.

The NFL suggesting that the teams refrain from doing something that the CBA allows them to do should have been enough. The Spanos-Bidwill texts should have been enough. The Broncos' internal communications should have been enough.

Now that the league has dodged the collusion bullet, the NFL and its teams will learn from the experience. They'll never put anything in writing that ever could be characterized as proof of collusion. And it will become even harder — if not impossible — for the NFLPA to prove collusion when it happens.

Even if it will happen. Because the facts of the failed grievance show, in our view, that it absolutely did.