The Chicago Bears are a part of a bigger problem going on in the NFL when it comes to player contracts. A new report by Pablo Torre revealed a 61-page ruling by System Arbitrator Christopher Droney regarding a collusion grievance by certain veteran players in the league about fully guaranteed contracts.
Per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the league and the NFL Players Association refused to make the ruling public. Torre unearthed the report, found the league colluded to encourage teams to reduce guarantees for veteran contracts.
“Although the NFL won, the NFL lost,” Florio wrote. “As Droney wrote at pages 55 and 56 of the January 14, 2025 ruling, “There 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.”
“In other words, the NFL wanted its member teams to collude.”
The meeting in 2022 happened just days after the Cleveland Browns signed quarterback Deshaun Watson to arguably the worst deal in history, a fully guaranteed contract worth $230 million for five years.
The Chicago Bears played a key role
The Bears have played a key role in the scandal, having never signed a veteran player to a fully guaranteed contract. As Florio notes, the league tried to make certain that full guarantees would not come on a “piecemeal basis.” Chicago has made sure not to agree to such a deal for a veteran player.
The Bears have signed first-round picks, such as Caleb Williams and Colston Loveland, to fully guaranteed deals, but that is common in the league. Chicago still has not signed their three second-round picks in 2025 because of a dispute about fully guaranteed pay.
An “astounding conclusion”
While Florio believes the report should have been a slam dunk for the NFLPA, he believes the league won on an “astounding conclusion.”
“The league ultimately won because Droney found that the evidence introduced at the 2024 hearing did not prove, by a ‘clear preponderance’ of the evidence, that the teams accepted and acted on the encouragement of the NFL Management Council,” Florio wrote. For anyone who has followed the inner workings of the league over the years, that’s an astounding conclusion.”
“One that defies common sense. Why have a Management Council if teams are going to ignore the things they encourage the teams to do?”
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