The complaint against collusion ended, and no one spoke about it

During the 2022 season, former NFL Players Association executive DeMaurice Smith He hinted strongly While appearing on #PFTPM that the collusion complaint was coming due to the league’s teams refusing to give some veteran quarterbacks fully guaranteed contracts. The following month, A grievance has been filed. The process took its course, and the ruling was issued.

And no one talks about it.

Not a single word. Not a peep.

The best we can expect, based on the limited information we have gathered, is that the grievance has failed. This would explain the silence in two ways.

First, if the Union had won, the Union would have said so. Although confidentiality applies to the process, there is no confidentiality regarding the outcome.

Second, the NFL is renewing its push for an 18-game regular season. In this particular case, discretion becomes the better part of valor (I have no idea what that saying means, but I’ve always liked the sound of it). Why is the NFLPA being fired when the union appears to be dealing with internal chaos? By passing up the opportunity to shout, the NFL is helping to maintain a spirit of cooperation that could lead to an agreement to expand to 18 games, sooner rather than later.

There’s another interesting wrinkle at play. Article 17 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which sets out the rules regarding collusion and procedures for proving it, includes a clause that makes the losing party liable for the other party’s legal fees.

Here’s the language in Article 17, Section 15: “In any action brought for an alleged violation of Section 1 of this Article, the arbitrator shall order the payment of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs by any party found to have brought such action or assert a defense of Such action shall be made without any reasonable basis for asserting such claim or defense otherwise, each party shall pay its own attorneys’ fees and costs.”

If the arbitrator finds that the NFLPA brought the lawsuit without a “reasonable basis” to do so, the union will end up billing for the legal fees incurred by the NFL defending against the entire lawsuit.

It will be at least a million dollars. This will come at a time when the Union recently fell on the wrong side of the A.J Verdict: $7 million For breach of the contract concluded with Panini.

Efforts will continue to find out what happened. There is a possibility that, in the end, the league not only incurred significant legal fees in pushing the claim, but also ended up obligated to reimburse the NFL for all reasonable legal fees it incurred in pushing back on the claim.

However, the union will likely have to disclose liability (if any) in its public reports of income and expenses.