Deshaun Watson’s 2022 five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed deal with Cleveland shattered NFL norms—and lit a clear spark under quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, Kyle Murray, and Russell Wilson. Suddenly, what once seemed impossible became something to chase: full financial security in a league built on “maybe we cut you at year three.” The market shifted overnight, with each QB eyeing Watson’s contract and thinking: “That could be me.”

Wilson, fresh off a high-profile trade to Denver, believed he’d snagged similar terms, only to settle down with a deal heavy on guarantees early but missing that ironclad promise for the full term. Jackson and Murray, meanwhile, learned lessons fast: Murray landed a partially guaranteed $160 million package, while Jackson pushed negotiations to rival Watson’s, knowing the owners were keen to avoid setting a new standard. In short, the QBs tried—but kept finding the same invisible wall.

The catch? Well, in the aftermath of it, Wilson’s choice of settling down for a deal without a fully guaranteed income—fairly or not—became a convenient point of blame, literally. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio and Pablo Torre of the podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out recently broke down a report on Tuesday that revealed that J.C. Tretter, the President of NFLPA, repeatedly insulted and accused Wilson of ruining the contracts of every other player in the NFL.

“What I can now report is that J.C. Tretter, in a series of text messages that he sent to then-executive director of the union, DeMaurice Smith, repeatedly insulted Russell Wilson,” Torre said. “At one point, he used an expletive that I will not say here. J.C. Tretter also called Russell Wilson a quote-unquote ‘wuss.’ Then he said of Wilson, quote, ‘Instead of being the guy that made guaranteed contracts the norm, he’s the guy that ruined it for everyone,’ end quote.” Translation?

Well, after the Browns signed Watson on a jaw-dropping deal back in 2022, Wilson asked the Broncos for a seven-year, fully guaranteed deal, around $50 million per year. However, the veteran quarterback later settled down to a five-year, $245 million deal with just $165 million guaranteed. And rather than calling out the team’s owners, Tretter believed that Wilson wasn’t strategic enough to push harder for a fully guaranteed deal—at least that’s what Torre suggested.

“To be very clear about this, the reason Russell Wilson didn’t get a fully guaranteed contract is because he’s not smart enough, not strategic enough to push hard enough for it, and not because the owners were colluding against Russell Wilson or Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray or the players,” Torre continued. “J..C. Tretter was blaming the player instead of the owners.” Torre later mentioned that four of his sources in the union believed Tretter didn’t want to publicly document his criticism of other union members.

Why? Well, Tretter was concerned that the NFL players would then not trust him if he was talking behind their backs. The kicker? The NFL used his words in the lawsuit and claimed that the team owners were colluding to not provide fully guaranteed deals to the players. Amidst this all Collusion feud back in 2022, the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, came up with a decision.

Roger Goodell urged NFL teams to collude

When the Browns signed Watson on a fully guaranteed contract in 2022, the NFL made one thing crystal clear: the league didn’t want this kind of fully guaranteed contract to become the new standard for veteran players seeking contracts or extensions. The result? Well, according to Pablo Torre and as confirmed by Mike Florio, an arbitrator found that the NFL Management Council “encouraged” all 32 teams to reduce guaranteed money for the veteran players who are seeking contracts, in a March 2022 NFL owners meeting.

And here’s the kicker: it wasn’t just a whisper; the arbitrator later confirmed that Commissioner Goodell approved this message. “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,” the arbitrator, Christopher Droney, wrote.

And that means only one thing: both the NFL and Goodell wanted teams to collude to reduce guaranteed money while addressing the contracts of veterans. To spice things up, Droney explained that despite this evidence, the NFL still won. Why? Because Droney failed to prove by a “clear preponderance” that all the individual teams actually followed through with the collusion.

All in all, it started with Watson’s contract—and its ripple effects were felt by Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, and Kyler Murray. But in the end, it was Wilson, who’s now in New York, who took the brunt of the blame, singled out by the NFLPA president.