Mike Florio at profootballtalk.com addresses the appeal in the latest round of the NFL’s legal issues:
Although the NFL won Round 1, the ruling included a finding that, at the 2022 annual meeting, the league invited (if not encouraged) teams to collude in the aftermath of the five-year, fully-guaranteed contract the Browns gave to quarterback Deshaun Watson. The arbitrator got it wrong, I believe, by ignoring the circumstantial evidence of actual collusion and accepting the predictable “we did not collude” denials from the witnesses called by the NFL.
Will the appeals panel set aside the obvious, self-serving claims and focus on the circumstantial evidence of actual collusion?
However it plays out, a ruling is coming. At some point. If/when the full document comes to light (hopefully they won’t try to hide it again), it could contain significant findings as to whether the league told the teams to collude — and whether they did.
I have a problem with this take.
Florio often provides great analysis when it comes to the NFL. This is especially true when it comes to its legal issues, presumably because he is a lawyer. I find his deep dives into long legal filings that are, of course, reams of paper in length to be important for anyone who is really interested in how the league works. His ability to distill these documents into more than a two-sentence summary of the complex and winding logic behind these legal issues is fascinating to me.
But, like everything you read, you have to sometimes take his conclusions with a grain of salt. Based upon my readings of his posts over many, many years now, it’s fairly obvious to me that most of his contacts are associated with NFL agents who represent players in negotiations across the league with all 32 teams.
This tends to bias Florio’s viewpoint. He’s often looking at issues from a player’s point of view. Worse, like any reporter, consciously or unconsciously, it’s natural to wonder when he’s writing his articles if he’s worried that his takes are angering his contacts and, therefore, are threatening his livelihood. The current post is a great example.
Is it that hard to believe that 32 teams would independently come to the conclusion that too many fully guaranteed contracts in a sport where injuries are so common would severely damage their business? That increasing the dead cap money associated with those contracts when they fail kills competition as teams cut their rosters to the bone to get under the cap?
If it’s obvious to me as a fan, surely it should be obvious to anyone with an unbiased point of view, let alone any owner with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a judge to demand more than circumstantial evidence to prove a claim of collusion in such a case.