NFL's "laser focus" for 18-game season seems to be tied to collusion grievance secrecy

The week began with the quiet issuance of a ruling in the NFL Players Association's collusion grievance regarding the league's refusal to give fully-guaranteed contracts to certain veteran quarterbacks. As Sunday morning unfolds, there continues to be no official word on the outcome or its aftermath.

And it has become more and more clear as we've tried to get the written decision or details about its contents that both the NFL and NFLPA are deliberately and aggressively keeping it quiet.

One of the problems with arbitration instead of litigation comes from the secrecy of a private process for resolving disputes. Confidentiality applies to the entire process, from documents exchanged to testimony harvested to arguments advanced to any of the other things that would become public record if the battle played out in open court.

But there's no confidentiality as to the resolution, unless the parties to the arbitration decide to continue to keep it tightly under wraps.

Here, both sides have done that — so far. Despite rumblings that the full order will be released any day now, it hasn't been. And that has pointed more and more strongly to the idea that: (1) the NFLPA lost, which gives them no reason to crow about it; and (2) the NFL won, and it's doing the union a favor by not running a victory lap.

That favor seems to be tied directly to the league's desire to expand the regular season to 18 games.

As one source put it, and another source confirmed, there's a "laser focus" to add an 18th game. It's believed that the goal is to get an agreement this year.

There's also an effort, we're told, to package the collusion grievance in a way that insulates current executive director Lloyd Howell from criticism while directing the bulk of the blame to former executive director DeMaurice Smith. While the collusion grievance was filed during Smith's tenure, Howell could have settled it at any time after he got the job in 2023, when the collusion grievance was only seven or eight months old. It instead lingered from Howell's hiring through a final ruling. It's therefore impossible for none of the fallout to stick to Howell.

If the NFL can parlay discretion over the collusion grievance into a major concession from the union, the 18th game wouldn't be added so quickly. As recently explained, the Super Bowls capping the 2025 and 2026 seasons have been set — with the game to be played in 2027 landing on President's Day weekend. The earliest season for adding an 18th game would be 2027.

That predates the expiration of both the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (after the 2030 season) and the broadcast deals (which can be terminated by the NFL four years early, after the 2029 season).

The NFL and the NFLPA can negotiate a new CBA at any time. The same thing can be done with the TV deals.

The league also would possibly be able to carve the new weekend of games away from the existing broadcast deals and sell them to one or more networks. Netflix, for example, snatched a pair of Christmas games from the current deals that were supposedly exclusive to CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC, and Amazon. The NFL could, if it wanted, take all or part of the new Week 19 and put the games up for bid.

However it plays out, there's a connection between the decision to keep the ruling in the collusion grievance quiet and the effort to add another game.

At some point, the ruling on the collusion grievance will be released. For now, though, the NFL seems to be trying to work with the union to put lipstick on the pigskin in an effort to put more cash in everyone's coffers.