The story of the collusion ruling is slowly dying on the vine, undoubtedly to the delight of the NFL and the NFL Players Association.
It’s dying because the people who cover the NFL aren’t willing or able to advance the story. (It’s unclear whether they’re even trying.)
Despite no new reporting, the story of last week received a mild jolt of adrenaline from former executive director DeMaurice Smith’s upcoming book. Via Daniel Kaplan of AwfulAnnouncing.com, Smith’s book (Turf Wars) addresses the collusion case, which was filed when Smith was still in the job.
“There were people inside our building who thought it was a waste of time, but internally, our office had evidence of collusion, including hearing from multiple sources that the league and teams were discussing their avoidance of fully guaranteed contracts,” Smith writes.
The NFLPA proved that the NFL encouraged teams to collude regarding guaranteed contracts, with clear evidence of internal communications aimed at getting teams to hold the line following the Deshaun Watson contract. And the ruling contains plenty of evidence of actual collusion, even if the arbitrator chose to ignore it.
Still, the story goes nowhere if there are no developments. And there will be no developments if the people who receive paychecks to cover the NFL take steps to preserve those paychecks by tiptoeing around something that could piss off the league and/or the union.
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