Independent reporter Pablo Torre was able to find and publish the full results of a grievance filed by the NFLPA against the NFL alleging collusion in the wake of Browns QB Deshaun Watson‘s fully guaranteed, $230 million contract that he signed as a part of his trade to Cleveland back in 2022.

As usually happens in these sorts of cases, the grievance was heard by an arbitrator who ultimately found last year that the NFL did not collude to suppress guaranteed salaries. Neither the NFL nor the NFLPA leaked the results of the arbitration and it remained under wraps for months until Torre uncovered it.

While the NFLPA did not win the case, the document contains a ton of interesting nuggets that were revealed from testimonies, text messages, emails and other items found during discovery as a part of the case. The arbitrator did not think the evidence supported a finding of collusion against the NFL but there is plenty to suggest that the league and owners wanted to make Watson’s deal an outlier. In the months after that deal, then-Broncos QB Russell Wilson, Cardinals QB Kyler Murray and Ravens QB Lamar Jackson all sought full guarantees. None received them.

Below are some insights pulled from the grievance documents released by Torre that go behind the scenes of talks with Wilson, Murray and Jackson.

Russell Wilson

• Per the grievance, in initial talks with the Broncos prior to the trade, Wilson asked for a seven-year, $350 million contract that was all guaranteed. He testified Denver seemed open to the idea, but that 10 days later, it felt like they got cold feet. However, the document notes it didn’t seem like his agent shared that understanding, and there were overall complications with the sale of the team to new ownership that pushed back the timing for a new deal.
• Broncos salary negotiator Rich Hurtado said in an email to GM George Paton with notes for a discussion with new owner Greg Penner that they believed they had the leverage in contract talks and did not foresee any other quarterback contract matching the precedent from the Watson deal. Paton later texted Penner and told him he had told Wilson’s camp the Watson deal was a non-starter.
• Penner’s notes from that meeting included “2 years left on contract why not wait?” suggesting Penner entered the meeting with some doubt about signing Wilson to an extension, which later proved to be valid.
• However, his notes also included Denver’s rationale for a deal , which was to ensure Wilson was happy as well as to get ahead of any other talks and establish a precedent of not fully guaranteeing contracts.
• Wilson’s camp chose to submit a contract offer that was not fully guaranteed, but one they believed was “practically” fully guaranteed. Emails from the Denver side noted “there’s nothing in here that other owners will find off-market [like the Watson deal].”
• An email from Penner said, *“[the guarantees] are...