Independent reporter Pablo Torre was able to find and publish the full results of a grievance filed by the NFLPA against the NFL alleging collusion in the wake of Browns QB Deshaun Watson‘s fully guaranteed, $230 million contract that he signed as a part of his trade to Cleveland back in 2022. 

As usually happens in these sorts of cases, the grievance was heard by an arbitrator who ultimately found last year that the NFL did not collude to suppress guaranteed salaries. Neither the NFL nor the NFLPA leaked the results of the arbitration and it remained under wraps for months until Torre uncovered it. 

While the NFLPA did not win the case, the document contains a ton of interesting nuggets that were revealed from testimonies, text messages, emails and other items found during discovery as a part of the case. The arbitrator did not think the evidence supported a finding of collusion against the NFL but there is plenty to suggest that the league and owners wanted to make Watson’s deal an outlier. In the months after that deal, then-Broncos QB Russell Wilson, Cardinals QB Kyler Murray and Ravens QB Lamar Jackson all sought full guarantees. None received them. 

Below are some insights pulled from the grievance documents released by Torre that go behind the scenes of talks with Wilson, Murray and Jackson. 

Russell Wilson

• Per the grievance, in initial talks with the Broncos prior to the trade, Wilson asked for a seven-year, $350 million contract that was all guaranteed. He testified Denver seemed open to the idea, but that 10 days later, it felt like they got cold feet. However, the document notes it didn’t seem like his agent shared that understanding, and there were overall complications with the sale of the team to new ownership that pushed back the timing for a new deal. 
• Broncos salary negotiator Rich Hurtado said in an email to GM George Paton with notes for a discussion with new owner Greg Penner that they believed they had the leverage in contract talks and did not foresee any other quarterback contract matching the precedent from the Watson deal. Paton later texted Penner and told him he had told Wilson’s camp the Watson deal was a non-starter.
• Penner’s notes from that meeting included “2 years left on contract why not wait?” suggesting Penner entered the meeting with some doubt about signing Wilson to an extension, which later proved to be valid.
• However, his notes also included Denver’s rationale for a deal , which was to ensure Wilson was happy as well as to get ahead of any other talks and establish a precedent of not fully guaranteeing contracts.
• Wilson’s camp chose to submit a contract offer that was not fully guaranteed, but one they believed was “practically” fully guaranteed. Emails from the Denver side noted “there’s nothing in here that other owners will find off-market [like the Watson deal].”
• An email from Penner said, “[the guarantees] are far less than the Watson deal. If we can get this done, [Paton] feels very good about it for us as a franchise and the benchmark it sets (versus Watson) for the rest of the league.”
• Former NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith and former NFLPA president and former Packers and Browns C J.C. Tretter exchanged texts expressing frustration over Wilson not securing a fully guaranteed deal. Those texts were suppressed in the grievance but Torre says Tretter used some seriously disparaging language toward Wilson. 

Kyler Murray

• Murray’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, initially submitted a more traditional offer to the Cardinals on February 17, 2022, following the conclusion of Murray’s third season. However, he withdrew that offer after the Browns’ Watson blockbuster on March 24, citing in communication to the team “[Arizona’s] unresponsiveness to Kyler’s proposal made over five weeks ago now, and with the QB landscape having drastically changed with the 4 new QB deals done since we sent our proposal.”
• Burkhardt wanted a fully guaranteed deal for Murray and believed he was a better candidate for one than Watson. That idea got no traction with the Cardinals front office, per Burkhardt, who testified the team “made it clear for months that [the Watson deal] was a non-starter for them.”
• Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill texted then-GM Steve Keim about Murray, “We are going to load up this contract with so…many incentives to earn the real money.” Keim replied, “Why the Browns felt so compelled to pay Watson like that is Baffling.”
• Burkhardt said Murray relented and signed a deal that wasn’t fully guaranteed due to, “I would say, the sandbox he was essentially forced to play in.”
• He also said the Cardinals pointed out that Murray had two more years on his rookie contract and they could use the franchise tag for multiple years after that, so they did not want to sign a contract that would negatively impact their roster flexibility, especially because Murray is a “relatively small quarterback compared with others in the league.” 
• After Murray’s deal, Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Bidwill had the following text exchange. DS: “Congratulations on signing Murray.”
• MB: “Thanks Deno! These QB deals are expensive but we limited the fully guaranteed money and have some pretty good language. Thankfully we have a QB that’s worth paying.”
• DS: “Your deal helps us for our QB next year.”
• MB: “I think many teams will be happy with it once they have a chance to review. Cleveland really screwed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guaranteed relatively ‘low.'”

Lamar Jackson

• Ravens GM Eric DeCosta testified he wasn’t against fully guaranteed contracts, but he was opposed to guaranteeing money far out into the future, like the fifth or sixth year of deals. He noted concern for injuries as the reason, and cited some of Jackson’s injury issues in 2021 and 2022.
• DeCosta negotiated directly with Jackson, who was aided by his mother, Felicia Jones, and was not represented by an agent. DeCosta testified Jackson asked for a fully-guaranteed deal and he knew it was important to him.
• However, he came to believe after a conversation with him in 2022 that Jackson would accept a non-fully guaranteed deal, which he put on the table. Jackson did not accept it. After further negotiations, Jackson told the Ravens he would play out the fifth-year option on his rookie contract in 2022. He texted, “I’m going to continue to request a FULLY GUARANTEED contract I understand you all DON’T and that’s fine”
• The two sides resumed talks in 2023 and the document states DeCosta offered Jackson three different three-year extensions that he considered to be fully guaranteed. Jackson declined all of them and requested a trade. The document also says Jackson told DeCosta the microphone on Jackson’s phone was not working, which made communication difficult.
• Following Jackson’s trade request, DeCosta asked for a list of teams to which Jackson would accept a trade, but the quarterback never provided one.
• The Ravens ultimately used the non-exclusive franchise tag on Jackson which allowed other teams to negotiate with him while preserving Baltimore’s right to match any offer. DeCosta said only a couple of teams expressed interest to him in signing Jackson before he used the tender. After the tender, no team reached out directly to Jackson, who again was representing himself.
• DeCosta and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti testified there may have been a number of reasons other teams didn’t pursue Jackson, including his contract, the draft pick compensation of two first-round picks the Ravens would have been entitled to and Jackson’s unique running style as a player that exposed him to more contact.
• At the time, multiple teams explicitly took themselves out of the running for Jackson to reporters, including Atlanta. Falcons owner Arthur Blank testified they were concerned about Jackson’s injuries and preferred their cheaper options, which at the time included Desmond Ridder.
• Per the arbitration filing, Jackson was preparing for the 2023 NFL Draft as if Jackson would no longer be playing for the Ravens, but he sent a new offer the day before the draft which — to his surprise — Jackson quickly accepted. 
• The two sides are once again discussing a new contract this summer, as Jackson has three years remaining on his current five-year, $260 million deal. 

NFL Management Council

At the NFL owners meeting in spring of 2022, the NFL management council gave a presentation raising concern about the increase in guarantees, signing bonuses and dead money that teams were taking on. In the notes, which were not visible except to the presenters, the presentation noted:

• “if guarantees continue to grow both in amount and number of players…the risk …[is they] become the norm in player contracts regardless of quality.” 
• Guarantees could “hinder roster management” and “set a market standard that will be difficult to walk back.” 
• If clubs kept going over 100 percent cash over cap in perpetuity — spending more in signing bonuses and other prorated guarantees than the salary cap for that year, basically how the Eagles and a few other teams have managed the salary cap — it would effectively give players a higher percentage of the total revenues generated than they are entitled to per the terms of the CBA.