I was looking for a discussion on it, but I don’t see it.
Pablo Torre unearthed a arbitrator’s document about NFL teams colluding to lower guaranteed contracts.
It’s interesting, Pablo and Florio discuss, there’s also a link at the bottom of the page to download the entire document. Plus there are some reactions from other media members. I’m still trying to catch up, but was surprised that there wasn’t a thread on here.
I thought the NFLPA became much weaker when Upshaw died and De Smith took over, now I think it is borderline corrupt now (maybe not borderline).
Anyone have any thoughts?
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I heard them talking about this on the athletic football podcast. They discussed how it seemed really fishy that they handed Deshaun Watson a fully guaranteed contract and then the Ravens were denying Lamar that same sort of deal. Then when teams could inquire about trading for him, you heard owners like Arthur Blank talking about injuries and play style… Even though Watson had just come off injury and Lamar had just won MVP, with no injury major history. It definitely seems like there was some conspiring going on behind the scenes… It’s a dirty business.
P. S. When will we ever hear about the Gruden emails and all the dirty laundry he was going to air out? It’s been a couple years now.
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I thought it was gonna be a bigger story. To be honest I don’t really understand it……but Chris Long was talking about it and was pissed. Said to many players don’t care.
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Who is Pablo Torre? Is he someone that’s a well known and respected source of NFL information. I haven’t listened to the video yet, but will give it a go. Read the article and it always kind of turns me off when someone uses embellishing statements when just being straight forward should be enough to capture my attention.
And there ain’t no way I’m downloading a .pdf file onto my computer without knowing he’s a trusted source. Is the video enough to get his point without downloading the .pdf? Or is the whole meat of his story in that .pdf?
I don’t see the problem here. Big guaranteed contracts are bad for the sport. Most NFL teams spend the vast majority of their cap so a $1 given to a star player in a guaranteed contract is a $1 taken away from another player.
Keeping the top contracts a bit lower and the league minimums higher = better product on the field. That has resulted in an ever growing cap and more money for everyone.
It’s not the fact that the owners independently decided not to hand out higher guaranteed contracts, it’s the collusion behind how they went about it.
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NFL views it as healthier for them to sweep it under the rug
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The power of big business. The NFL so big right now pretty much impossible to screw it up….but I’m sure they will.
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#1… the “problem” is that collusion is illegal…
#2… Your opinion that big contracts are “bad for the sport” is the opinion of a fan…. not shared by ANY of the people actually affected by the financial impact of those actions.
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I mean…. I would like filet mignon to be priced at $2.00 per pound…
and I may think no cattle rancher really deserves to charge anything more than that…. because it is bad for me.
That doesn’t mean that Walmart and every other grocery business should be able to price fix beef to enable my preference.
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It is a LEAGUE of owners. They have special anti-trust exemption.
You are 0-2 here.
A “few” people get big contracts. The majority of the league make far less but since the new NFL contracts in the last 10 years, league minimum has jumped dramatically. 1 player 1 vote and the majority of NFL players are making more money than they used to.
Well that was a very good video. Interesting topic that kept me engaged and brought an interesting view of some of the behind the curtains shenanigans that occur on both sides of the argument. And not having even heard of Pablo Torre before, he seems like a level headed guy and not someone who’s just reaching for clicks.
Clearly Florio and Torre are convinced that there was (is) collusion going on between the owners. Aside from some of the circumstantial evidence (Florio’s own words) I don’t really see the smoking gun that says for certain that there was.
Beside the fact that Jackson, Murray, and Wilson didn’t get the fully guaranteed contracts that they wanted the only other things they seem to point to is the text message between Bidwell and Spanos, and then the comment from the Broncos owner. Neither of which seem incriminating to me.
It was also a good point they brought up that when Wilson didn’t get his fully guaranteed contract that Tretter blamed it on Wilson rather than any efforts of collusion.
I do have a question based on Florio’s comment that the NFLPA could potentially use this as leverage in the next CBA negotiations. Is the arbitrators decision final and this can never be litigated again? Or can the NFLPA threaten to push this into the courts? Is there a statute of limitations that would prevent the NFLPA from threatening to pursue these charges 5 years from now as leverage in their CBA negotiations?
As a side note, they did spend a bit of time on the change of leadership process for the players association. Definitely looks like a bit of Quid Pro Quo might have happened to get Tretter his position in the NFLPA. Also interesting about Lloyd Allen and the situation at Booz Allen over charging their government contracts.
Finally, I wonder if Florio and Torre will receive any type of blow back from the NFL and the NFLPA for trying to bring all this stuff to light. Seems like both of them rely on a bit of inside access to the NFL to do their jobs. They may find the inside access a bit harder to “access” in the future.
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the “league” of owners are viewed as independent businesses in the legal world.
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the “anti-trust” aspects don’t protect them from laws that prevent collusion. The NFL has narrowly eacaped rulings so far… but there have already been legal cases filed against the owners.
Obtaining the “proof” or a judgement may not be easy….
but it is 100% illegal for the collectively bargained agreements.
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I’m going to assume with this much money going around that there is collusion all over the place.
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And lying, cheating, back-stabbing and scheming.
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I guess the Ravens offered Jackson 3 years fully guaranteed……he wanted 5 and they wouldn’t go there. Gotta say the fact that they did offer 3 years guaranteed kind of makes this a non issue for me. Jackson chose to go with the 5 year deal that wasn’t fully guaranteed.
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This is the bottom line for me, too, especially when the Jackson contract is what they use as an example.
The reality is that it is just plain hard for backdoor, secret collusion agreements to work when there are incentives to go around them. In this case, you’ve got 32 ultra-competitive jillionaires who all have “f*ck you” money and attitudes. It’s not terribly difficult to imagine a Jerry Jones or David Tepper going rogue to get what he wants, and it only takes one to foul up any collusion.
The reality is that the players negotiate their guaranteed money via signing bonus, injury guarantees, and the like. In the fixed-pie world of a hard salary cap, it’s hard to argue that guaranteed contracts benefit the membership overall, as it necessarily means that the guys who are actually on the field will make less to cover for those who aren’t (or shouldn’t be).
It’s not collusion to discuss at the owners meeting or anywhere else what is or isn’t good for the league in terms of the cap or CBA.
It is collusion if they’re instructed to do or not to do something in regards.
Florio and Torres feel the arbitrator believes the NFL colluded in terms of guaranteeing contracts but the truth is that same arbitrator cleared the NFL of any wrong doing.
Florio is trying to claim that by the league having the conversation on how guaranteed contracts are not good for the league that they concluded. The judge ruled that isn’t true that the NFLPA must prove they told teams not to do it. Which they did not prove.
This is a non story and Florio is trying to spin it into one. It’s crap like this that make him such a shitty source for NFL news.
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Actually, according to the report, the arbitrator found that the NFL management council was attempting to collude by suggesting that the owners limit and avoid offering fully guaranteed contracts. However, the arbitrator couldn’t find evidence that they actually did collude. So he ruled in favor of the NFL owners.
But yes, there were a lot of things that Florio and Pablo were reaching on to substantiate their views.
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One more reason why the league would have liked Jimmy Haslem to have been convicted on more severe charges than he was after ■■■■■■■ his customers at FlyingJ/Pilot
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