On Monday, Tom Brady announced that he’ll unretire to play in a flag football tournament in Saudi Arabia.
The press release named several active NFL players as scheduled participants: Saquon Barkley, CeeDee Lamb, Christian McCaffrey, Sauce Gardner, Myles Garrett, Brock Bowers, Maxx Crosby, and Tyreek Hill.
The league said on Tuesday that it’s not an NFL initiative. On Friday, the NFL sent a memo to all teams regarding the event.
“The Event is not an NFL-sanctioned event and the league has no role in the organization or production of the game,” the league explains in the memo, a copy of which PFT has obtained. “This Event is not covered by the resolution to permit NFL Players to participate in Olympic Flag Football. Therefore, if an NFL Player sustains an injury while participating in the Event, he is not entitled to any injury protection or any other rights related to that injury under his NFL Player Contract (‘Contract’) or the Collective Bargaining Agreement as a Football-Related Injury. Any injury sustained while participating in the Event will be considered a Non-Football Injury. Moreover, there will be no roster relief or other measures taken to mitigate the loss of a player to his Club should the player sustain an injury while participating in the Event that renders him unable to perform services under his Contract.”
The memo also quotes the relevant provision of the NFL player contract: “Without prior written consent of the Club, Player will not play football or engage in activities related to football otherwise than for Club or engage in any activity other than football which may involve a significant risk of personal injury.”
As a result, each team must decide whether to allow the player to play. And any team can decline to grant permission.
“[I]t is within your Club’s exclusive discretion whether any player under contract on your roster may participate in the Event,” the memo explains. If you are inclined to grant consent for a player’s participation, you must confirm so by providing written notice to the player. We recommend that you notify the player that his participation in the Event, and any activities he engages in related to the Event, will be at the player’s own risk and will not be covered by his Contract or the Collective Bargaining Agreement.”
In other words, the team has the right to refuse to allow any player to play. The team also has the right to tell the player that, if he participates and gets injured, he won’t get paid.
So far, only the Cowboys have said that Lamb has permission to play. It’s not known whether the Cowboys have committed to paying Lamb, in the event he’s hurt.
For some teams, it may be worth the injury risk to let the player get the extra payday that comes from the flag football tournament. Especially if the player is prepared to assume the financial risk that would go along with suffering an injury.
Ultimately, it comes down to how much Saudi Arabia is offering. At some point, the money will be significant enough to get the player to put his primary football pay at risk for what could be a large pile of low-risk revenue.
UPDATE 7:28 p.m. ET: We’re told that the eight players listed above have received approval from their teams to participate in the event. Also, the players will be covered by the same type of insurance that the NFL uses for the Pro Bowl, the Olympics, other sporting events involving active players. The players, and their teams, will be insured against losses arising from any potential injuries happening during the competition.
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