. Although Watson was unrepentant in accepting the punishment, the league relented in pushing for the entire year , perhaps just wanting to put this yearlong bad news cycle, complete with more than 50 settled civil lawsuits , behind them.The player described above signed the largest, most secure and strongest contract in NFL history, and it’s not even close. The title of “best contract in the NFL” does not go to Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, etc.; it goes to Watson.
, a victim of the system and owners refusing to acknowledge precedent from the Watson contract. If the Ravens prevail here, Watson’s deal looks like it will fall in line with what the owners keep saying: an outlier.The hits kept coming for Dan Snyder, as the bill is coming due for decades of presiding over a toxic and misogynistic workplace.
before the end of his first season on the job, became both the NFL’s most valuable franchise and most disappointing team in the same year.Player contracts, even the most lucrative ones such as Watson’s, are couch-cushion money compared to what NFL owners receive from the public to build stadiums. With the leverage of an unspoken threat to move the team, NFL owners are able to squeeze state and local municipalities to provide hundreds of millions to have their teams stay put.
from losing to the 49ers in the playoffs. The salary cap aftermath of this strategy not only bit them this year, but will do so for years to come.was the completion of NFL media deals for a staggering cumulative number of $110 billion from Fox/ESPN/CBS/NBC/Amazon. There then remained only one still piece of the media puzzle: Sunday Ticket, a package being vacated by DirecTV.
Looking ahead to 2023, there will undoubtedly be a new disciplinary case to focus on; new contracts for Lamar Jackson , Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert; a new positional reset in the marketplace; and certainly new challenges in the NFL’s quest to continue the revenue pump going through daily and weekly controversies regarding officiating, gambling, concussions and more. The league has become, in many ways, too big to fail, as business booms no matter what the topic du jour may be.