Scott Polacek@@ScottPolacekIncluded Columnist IVDecember 29, 2023
Loren Elliott/Getty Images
With Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson playing like the league MVP, the subject of collusion from NFL group owners has actually been under the spotlight.
With that as the background, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported Thursday that the complaint submitted by the NFL Players Association in November 2022 is still pending. In the complaint, the NFLPA declared that groups reacted to the Cleveland Browns offering Deshaun Watson a fully-guaranteed five-year, $230 million by concurring not to do so with “particular quarterbacks” moving on.
Usually, such landmark agreements act as a beginning point for future settlements with comparable gamers at comparable positions.
That would indicate, in turn, that future agreements for heading quarterbacks would likely be completely ensured considering that Watson’s was with the Browns. Groups concurring amongst themselves not to use such agreements in a method to restrict the complimentary market for gamers beyond what is currently in the cumulative bargaining contract would avoid that from occurring.
Kalyn Kahler of The Athletic reported in November 2022 that NFL basic counsel Jeff Pash sent out a memo to groups around the league making them mindful the NFLPA sued declaring collusion was continuous in concerns to completely ensured agreements.
The NFLPA stated “(t)he expectation was that fully-guaranteed agreements would now end up being the competitors driven standard for the leading gamers in the League, consisting of quarterbacks, working out brand-new agreements.”
It likewise declared that “in the past, throughout and after” ownership conferences that year the “NFL owners and/or League executives talked about not concurring to any extra gamer agreements with fully-guaranteed wages.”
That complaint is still continuous more than a year later on.
In regards to Jackson, the Ravens positioned the nonexclusive franchise tag on him this previous offseason. Quarterback clingy groups might have made him a deal and landed Jackson for the cash and 2 first-round choices if Baltimore chose not to match it.
While 2 first-round choices is not absolutely nothing, Jackson is among the very best gamers in the league and simply 26 years of ages. Thinking about the Browns moved 3 first-rounders in their efforts to land Watson and the Carolina Panthers quit 2 first-rounders to go up and draft Bryce Young, it appears possible for groups to pay that cost for Jackson.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter exposed in a reply to a remark from NFL Network’s Rich Eisen that no group even approached the Ravens about making such a relocation:
Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter
That is not all. Ravens never ever were approached. Carolina traded several ones for Bryce Young, yet no group ever attempted to get an offer made with Lamar Jackson. There never ever was a group that challenged it as soon as Jackson himself openly specified he desired out of Baltimore. Lost chance.
Florio argued that absence of interest in the quarterback “had whatever to do with advancing ownership’s not-so-subtle collusion when it concerns gamers,
