After the Cleveland Browns signed quarterback Deshaun Watson to a fully guaranteed, five-year, $230 million contract in 2022, some wondered if that would establish a new normal for NFL quarterbacks.
NFL owners have been reluctant to give out fully guaranteed deals, and that trend did not change after the Browns broke the standard practice. Consequently, the NFL Players Association accused league owners of colluding with a unified stance to not give players fully guaranteed contracts.
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The NFLPA’s resulting collusion grievance against the NFL failed when Judge Christopher F. Droney ruled on Jan. 14 that NFL owners did not collude to prevent fully guaranteed contracts. The judge did acknowledge that “[t]here is little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans’ contracts at the March 2022 annual owners’ meeting.”
Being “encouraged,” though, is not enough to warrant a collusion ruling.
The NFLPA’s grievance did not get the ruling they were seeking, but the resulting 61-page document of discovery and witness testimony unveiled by the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast is fascinating.
Of note in relation to the Denver Broncos: quarterback Russell Wilson requested a seven-year, fully guaranteed contract worth “around $50 million a year” while the team was working on a trade for the QB in 2022. Wilson testified that the team “didn’t blink” when told his initial request during trade talks, and “They kept saying, ‘We’ll do whateverit takes. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
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However, after Wilson waived his no-trade clause and the Broncos acquired him from the Seattle Seahawks, Denver started getting “cold feet” on giving the QB a fully guaranteed deal, Wilson testified.
Also revealed in the document is that new owner Greg Penner questioned giving Wilson an extension at all during the 2022 offseason. His handwritten notes included this question: “2 years left on contract; why not wait?” Denver ultimately decided not to wait, and the team gave Wilson a five-year, $245 million extension with $124 million fully guaranteed, plus other injury and springing guarantees.
During his testimony, Penner stated that Watson’s deal with the Browns “was a complete outlier versus the other contracts that had been done,” and he believed “that it was off market and we weren’t going to do something in line with that.”
Had the Broncos heeded Penner’s initial reluctance, it would have saved the club millions, but Wilson likely agreed to waive his no-trade clause with the understanding that he would be getting an extension from Denver. The Broncos ended up cutting Wilson after two seasons, and the team took on the largest dead money salary cap hit in NFL history ($85 million). After eating $32 million this year, the team will finally be free of Wilson’s contract fallout in 2026.
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Giving Wilson an extension before he played a down for the team proved to be costly, but it would have been even worse had the team given him a fully guaranteed deal. A judge has ruled that Denver made that decision independently, and the collusion grievance did not land a ruling the NFLPA was seeking.
Related: These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans.
This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: NFL: Russell Wilson, Greg Penner linked to NFLPA’s collusion grievance
