NFL Collusion Scandal: NFLPA’s Allegations and How it Affects New Contracts
The National Football League is the premier sports league in the United States, with the Super Bowl essentially being an unofficial federal holiday. With so much influence and control, it begs the question: How much power is too much? The NFL constantly pushes the limits of that question, and it may have been revealed that the league and its owners have too much power thanks to two well-known journalists in the industry. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk and Pablo S. Torre, former ESPN senior writer and television personality, uncovered a 61-page arbitration document filed by the NFL Players Association that alleges the league’s owners colluded to not give players fully guaranteed contracts. On Torre’s podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” the two journalists went in-depth into the document to show how they believed that the owners colluded against their players.
How Did the Accusations Start?
The Cleveland Browns undoubtedly have a notable role to play in the accusations against the league. The Browns signed Deshaun Watson to an unprecedented fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract in March of 2022. After this contract was signed, NFL owners certainly weren’t happy about it, and some even went on the record to air their grievances. “Damn, I wish they hadn't guaranteed the whole contract,” said Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti. “I don’t know that he should’ve been the first guy to get a fully guaranteed contract. To me, that’s groundbreaking, and it’ll make negotiations harder with others.” That was said only a week after Watson signed his groundbreaking contract, but Bisciotti wasn’t done. “ It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to play that game, you know,” added Bisciotti. “We shall see. If I were in bogged-down negotiations with Lamar, then maybe I would have a quicker reaction to that news.”
How Lamar Jackson Impacted the Market
Eventually, negotiations with Lamar Jackson came around the corner with the then-one-time MVP and two-time Pro Bowler. Jackson vehemently requested a long-term, fully guaranteed contract, and the Ravens certainly didn’t “play that game” as Bisciotti said before. With no contract to his liking, he played on his fifth-year option, then subsequently requested a trade in March of 2023. The document confirmed the suspicions that not a single team reached out to the Ravens to inquire about Jackson after he asked to leave the organization. Just one month after requesting the trade, the former Heisman Trophy winner settled on a five-year contract extension worth $260 million with $185 million guaranteed. Since signing that deal, Jackson has accumulated two Pro Bowls, two First-Team All-Pros, one MVP, and was the MVP runner-up last season.
NFL Management Council: What Is It?
Looking back at Bisciotti’s statements, it was nothing out of the ordinary for a business-oriented individual to say. However, the timing of his statement raised eyebrows in the NFLPA’s eyes. The same day that Bisciotti gave that quote, he attended a 45-minute presentation with the NFL Management Council. The NFLMC is a revelation to many NFL fans, who had never heard about the organization. “That is the group that ostensibly provides advice and suggestions to the 32 teams on how to potentially weather these storms, whether they be temporary or permanent shifts in the way business is being done,” said Florio on the podcast. Then, Torre read off a specific slide from that March 2022 NFLMC presentation. “If 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 also sets a market standard that will be difficult to walk back.” In summary, all 32 NFL owners attended a presentation that directed them to avoid signing players to fully guaranteed contracts.
The Complicated Politics of the NFLPA
Clearly, the owners were shown in a very bad light in the document, so why didn’t the NFLPA immediately make it public? Well, because the players’ union didn’t look particularly good either. Two people in particular who are directly tied to this being kept under wraps are JC Tretter and Lloyd Howell. Tretter is a former center for the Packers and Browns from 2013-21 who served as NFLPA President from 2020-2024 and Howell is the Executive Director of the NFLPA, previously never working in the realm of sports and working for Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company that paid out a $377 million settlement for fraudulent bills about work with the U.S. government. Howell was infamously voted in during a confidential NFLPA search where players were uninformed about the executive director candidates until the day of the voting. Tretter allegedly orchestrated Howell's getting sworn in as executive director since he was released by the Browns on March 15, 2022, just four days after being unanimously re-elected president. By not being on an NFL roster, Tretter became ineligible for a third term, but Howell created a never-before-seen position in the union for him: Chief Strategy Officer, a position in which Tretter resides today.
Tretter-Wilson Drama Brought Uncertainty to Union Leadership
Even considering the questionable corporate ladder climbing of Tretter, it doesn’t entirely mean that he was bad for the union. After all, he helped negotiate the current CBA as well as help develop new health and safety protocols for the COVID-ridden 2020 season. What made the union look disjointed were text messages between the former union president and Russell Wilson. Wilson testified that in the early discussions with the Denver Broncos, he requested a seven-year, $350 million fully guaranteed contract. According to the testimony, Broncos ownership had no intention of signing the former Seahawk to a fully guaranteed contract, and Wilson inevitably signed a five-year, $245 extension with $165 in guaranteed money. After hearing this news, Tretter repeatedly insulted Wilson over text messages to then-Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, even calling him a “wuss.” “Instead of being the guy that made guaranteed contracts the norm, he’s the guy that ruined it for everyone,” Tretter texted to Smith. Union sources told Torre that the reason this document wasn’t published was that Tretter didn’t want to be publicly documented for privately insulting one of his fellow union members.
How This Impacts the Next Round of Contracts
With the messy details of this document being unsealed, the league’s top players will have even more leverage going into contract discussions. Players like Patrick Mahomes, T.J. Watt, Micah Parsons, and Rashawn Slater have all either begun or will begin negotiating contract extensions in 2026. With knowledge of the NFLMC and its tactics against hindering fully guaranteed contracts, the players could go extra hard at team executives to secure those deals. When negotiations between Mahomes and the Chiefs begin next year, who’s to say that he won’t become the second quarterback to get a fully guaranteed contract? Watson still sits in third place among overall guaranteed money in the league, just behind Dak Prescott’s $231 million guaranteed and Josh Allen’s $250 million. However, it should be mentioned that only 76% of Allen’s total $330 million contract is guaranteed, while Prescott managed to get all but $9 million of his deal in guaranteed money.
