The NFLPA actually proved in court NFL owners colluded. So why are they trying to bury it?

Boston Globe

2 days ago

'That is a big finding,' one former NFLPA employee said. 'Even though they didn't win, that is a factual finding. That is an important thing to tell players, that the NFL wanted to limit an important component of your compensation.'
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So why is the NFLPA trying to bury it?
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Neither the NFL nor the union said anything publicly about the decision, which isn't uncommon. But the PA also kept the decision secret from its own players, which is highly unusual.
Lloyd Howell
briefed the executive committee — a group of 11 players headed by NFLPA president
Jalen Reeves-Maybin
— about the decision, he didn't share details or a copy of the decision, and blamed previous executive director
DeMaurice Smith
for wasting the union's money.
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The former NFLPA employee said it would be highly unusual for the PA not to provide details to the executive committee, nor for the result of the arbitration to be withheld in internal memos.
The NFLPA ultimately appealed Droney's decision on Tuesday, but that it happened six months later, and on the eve of the release of ESPN's report, makes it look more PR than an honest fight. The NFL responded by demanding $12 million in legal fees from the union.
What is the NFLPA up to?
Sean Gardner/Getty
The collusion case centered around quarterbacks
Lamar Jackson
,
Russell Wilson
and
Kyler Murray
, who were unable to secure fully guaranteed contracts after Watson got a $230 million whopper from the Browns in 2022. Droney decided that just because the owners were encouraged by the NFL didn't necessarily prove there was collusion — technically, some owners weren't present at the presentation, some were off in the back, and some didn't need to be told to limit guarantees in player contracts.
But the union did prove a level of collusion, and it's bizarre Howell would keep that information away from all players, particularly its top leadership.
'When you hear something like this, assuming this is the full universe of information, it is a horrendously bad look for the union, which has been under fire for a long time for often times being too cozy to ownership,' said Miami-based attorney
Brad Sohn
, who has represented numerous players in litigation against the NFL and was a candidate for the EC job in 2023. 'There absolutely could be a valid reason for keeping it out of the public eye. We haven't heard one yet.'
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Howell has not commented publicly since Torre published the decision last month, and he may be benefiting from a quiet time in the sports calendar when many fans and journalists aren't paying attention. But the storm is building quickly around Howell, who replaced Smith as executive director in June 2023.
Per ESPN, the NFLPA last month hired the law firm Wilmer Hale to work with a special committee of players to review Howell's activities since joining the union. ESPN also reported this past week that Howell secretly has kept a consulting job with The Carlyle Group, a private equity fund that was recently approved by the NFL to buy any ownership stakes. It represents a significant conflict of interest for Howell, whose No. 1 priority is supposed to be protecting NFL players.
Howell was an unusual choice for executive director to begin with — an outsider from the world of business consulting who was quietly and suspiciously elected by a small cadre of PA insiders two summers ago.
Now with the questionable moves adding up — there also was a $7 million lawsuit for breach of contract with Panini, and currently an FBI investigation involving the NFLPA's dealings with group licensing firm, OneTeam Partners —
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'Lloyd Howell has demonstrated a pattern of poor judgment, financial mismanagement, and conflicts of interest that have cost the NFLPA millions of dollars and compromised the union's ability to effectively represent NFL players,' the petition said.
The petition means little, since Howell can only be removed by a two-thirds vote of team player reps. But momentum is quickly building against Howell, and it wouldn't be shocking if the NFLPA had new leadership before long.
Dolphins dysfunction
Leadership called into question
The Dolphins are looking dysfunctional.
Jim Rassol/Associated Press
Dolphins coach
Mike McDaniel
and GM
Chris Grier
were given a reprieve by ownership for last year's 8-9 record, likely because the Dolphins had to play six games without starting QB
Tua Tagovailoa
after he suffered a concussion.
But the Dolphins may regret running it back in 2025 instead of making a hard reset. The franchise is a mess right now.
The Dolphins owe $51 million this year to a quarterback (Tagovailoa) who isn't very good and can't seem to avoid concussions. They have a star receiver in
Tyreek Hill
who has been nothing but a headache the past two years and may still want to be traded. They had to trade cornerback
Jalen Ramsey
to the Steelers because he no longer wanted to play for the Dolphins less than a year after they gave him a huge contract extension. They also traded productive tight end
Jonnu Smith
to the Steelers instead of giving him a pay raise. The Dolphins got five-time Pro Bowl safety
Minkah Fitzpatrick
in return, but the Steelers clearly believe his best days are behind him.
The Dolphins' plan to replace Smith's 884 yards and eight touchdowns was to trade for previously-retired
Darren Waller
, which reeks of desperation. Waller hasn't cracked 700 yards or four touchdowns since 2020, and he was out of football last year.
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The Dolphins aren't making friends in free agency, either. They had been talking to four-year cornerback
Asante Samuel Jr.
, and his father, the former Patriots cornerback, ripped the organization.
'They're sensitive. There's no leadership in the Dolphins organization,' Samuel Sr. said last week. 'Mike McDaniel is a pushover. Chris Grier, the GM, has no backbone. They're running this team like a little league team.'
The Dolphins hired the laid-back McDaniel in 2022 as an antidote to the uptight
Brian Flores
. But McDaniel doesn't seem to have much respect in the locker room, with his players giving lip service last season instead of buying in.
'Last year, we were lying, honestly,' pass rusher
Bradley Chubb
said. 'We put our toe in the water, but we didn't dive all the way in. We didn't get all the way there with each other. We weren't making the effort to go the extra mile.'
McDaniel enters 2025 with perhaps the hottest seat of any head coach.
'It would have been awesome if he would have told me on the front end when they were lying,' McDaniel quipped. 'Beyond that, 2024, unless I'm using it directly for an analogy, I'm much more concerned with 2025. I don't even — what year did you speak of? I guess I'll read about that in history books.'
Passing attempts
'Quarterback' series has some insight
Joe Burrow is one of the stars of the latest season of Netflix's "Quarterback" series.
Matt Freed/Associated Press
The Netflix series 'Quarterback' returned last week after a one-year break, with cameras following
Joe Burrow
,
Kirk Cousins
and
Jared Goff
behind the scenes throughout the 2024 season.
I'm three episodes in, and while the series does have a decent amount of fluff to wade through, there are many insightful and entertaining moments: Watching Burrow learn the piano; hearing Goff retain and recite play calls; and seeing Cousins struggle with a new playbook in Atlanta and the large amount of pre-snap motion. Cousins, who also appeared on the first season of 'Quarterback,' seems to know exactly what the audience wants, using the show to promote some of his quirks, like his love of
Celine Dion
and his devotion to Great Clips.
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But most poignant about the series so far is the raw emotion it unearthed from Goff and Cousins about switching teams. Goff is entering his fifth season with the Lions, has become a folk hero in Detroit, makes $53 million per year and is married to a swimsuit model. Yet Goff still hasn't gotten over the Rams trading him before the 2021 season.
'I think for me, ultimately, it was the fact that there was not a conversation had and there wasn't like a, 'Hey, we're thinking of moving on' type of thing. There was nothing,' Goff said on the show. 'You wish that it wasn't such a blind side, and you wish that there was some sort of maturity, I guess, to have that conversation and to be able to let me know what's going on and how things went down and why this is happening.'
Cousins, meanwhile, is clearly ticked (in his 'aw shucks' way) at the Falcons for drafting
Michael Penix
with the No. 8 pick last year, less than two months after the Falcons lured Cousins away from Minnesota. Cousins got $100 million fully guaranteed, so don't feel sorry for him. But he definitely didn't expect the Falcons to draft a quarterback at No. 8, and would rather still be in Minnesota instead of benched after 14 games in Atlanta.
'It felt like I had been a little bit misled, or certainly if I had had the information around free agency, it would have affected my decision,' Cousins said. 'I had no reason to leave Minnesota, as much as we loved it there, if both teams were drafting a quarterback high.'
Dome time
Browns in line for new stadium
The Browns' wish for a domed stadium and mixed-use development in the suburbs seemed like pure fantasy when the Browns released renderings in 2024. But credit owner
Jimmy Haslam
for advancing the ball into the red zone, with the potential for a touchdown coming real soon.
The Browns have the plot of land — in Brook Park, near the Cleveland airport. They have the funds — $600 million in unclaimed state funds that were recently earmarked in the state budget (though a lawsuit is challenging the legality of the appropriation of the funds). And the Browns have the will power — Ohio lawmakers recently adjusted the state's 'Modell Law' to allow the Browns to move outside the Cleveland city limits as long as it's within the state.
Now it seems a matter of when, not if, the Browns will announce their new domed stadium to open in 2029. Cleveland's mayor,
Justin Bibb
, acknowledged that reality by stating that the Browns should help pay for the tear down of their current stadium on the downtown lakefront.
'It is my hope that the Haslams and the business community will support this administration and the city to demolish the stadium to ensure we have a transformation of the lakefront,' Bibb said, via the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
Bad news Bucs
Wirfs may miss first four games
The Buccaneers will start the season without All-Pro tackle Tristan Wirfs.
Peter Joneleit/Associated Press
All news is bad news in July, and that was certainly the case last week for the Buccaneers and left tackle
Tristan Wirfs
.
Wirfs, a three-time All Pro in five seasons, had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee this past week to clean up an injury that cost him one game in 2024. But doctors found additional damage during the surgery, per the St. Pete Times, and Wirfs is likely to start the season on the Physically Unable to Perform list, which will cost him at least the first four games of the regular season.
Wirfs has missed just five games in five seasons, and was First Team All-Pro in 2024. The Bucs signed
Charlie Heck
in March as the swing tackle, but instead he will be
Baker Mayfield's
blind-side protector while Wirfs is out.
Extra points
Training camp starts in a little more than a week, and 30 of the 32 second-round picks from April's draft still haven't signed their rookie contracts. The holdup was created by the two players who did sign — Browns LB
Carson Schwesinger
, the 33rd pick, and Texans WR
Jayden Higgins
, the 34th pick, as both received full guarantees on their entire four-year contracts, unprecedented for second-round picks. Fully guaranteed rookie contracts used to be only for first-rounders, and it seems no other team wants to cross that threshold. All eyes are on Seahawks safety
Nick Emmanwori
, the 35th pick. … Chiefs guard
Trey Smith
, the only player with a franchise tag, has until Tuesday to sign a long-term deal or he has to play the 2025 season on his tag number of $23.402 million … Did you know: The Patriots haven't had a 1,200-yard receiver since 2012, when
Wes Welker
went for 1,354 yards. The Patriots also are the only team without a 1,000-yard receiver over the last five seasons. The high mark is 866 yards by
Jakobi Meyers
in 2021 …
Eli Manning
wanted to buy a small sliver of the Giants, but told CNBC, 'It's too expensive for me. A 1 percent stake of something valued at $10 billion, it turns into a very big number.' It seems the Giants have no interest in giving Manning the 'Tom Brady discount' that got him in with the Raiders at pennies on the dollar … The book launch party for former NFLPA executive director
DeMaurice Smith
is Aug. 4, the same day Smith and the players ratified the CBA in 2011, ending the lockout … Because of a production error, the Eagles aren't getting their Super Bowl rings until July 18, four days before camp … Patriots rookie tackles
Will Campbell
(first round) and
Marcus Bryant
(seventh round) were among the 215 attendees this past week trading secrets at the OL Masterminds forum at Cosm Dallas, run by Eagles right tackle
Lane Johnson
. … Former Ravens and Jets linebacker
C.J. Mosley
announced his retirement last month after 11 seasons. Mosley's going to stay in football, but is taking a slightly different path. He already launched his own player agency, Legacy Trust Sports Group. 'Coaching was never my path, but guiding, mentoring and doing the right thing has always been in my DNA,' said Mosley, a five-time All-Pro.
Ben Volin can be reached at