Will Jon Gruden & Brian Flores lawsuits change NFL arbitration forever?

Yahoo Sports host Andrew Siciliano, senior NFL writer Frank Schwab and senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson discuss the ongoing lawsuits between the former head coaches and the league – and what is the most likely outcome. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

This is gonna get a little bit in the weeds here, but this is important.

And let me explain to the average NFL fan why it is important.

It has to do, guys, with arbitration, and the league basically has a system that if you are disciplined and you appeal, the appeal very often goes to the commissioner.

Now there are also appeals officers, right, that the league has as well, usually former players, but very often the fun can go all the way up to Roger Goodell.

Jon Gruden and Brian Flores both have pending cases.

When it comes to Gruden, he claims that the league released or leaked emails, and that led to his firing with the Raiders.

He has a suit in Nevada, Brian Flores has a suit as well.

He couldn’t get a head coaching job after the Dolphins fired him.

In both cases, Charles, there are now rulings pushing back against the concept that Roger Goodell or the head of any corporation is the final arbiter of discipline within that structure.

That doesn’t work.

It’s gonna affect the NFL’s arbitration system because the league now has to sit there and look at this and say, this has been a huge legal battle right now with these coaches, and we have to look and be forward thinking and know that if, if we want them in that arbitration system, we’re gonna have to bargain that.

There’s going to have to be something in place that gives us the power to push them very clearly in writing through the arbitration system rather than through a normal court, a normal court system.

So it’s, the NFL as a league, not wanting to air its dirty laundry.

is on the verge with these two lawsuits of being put in a situation where a lot of dirty laundry could ultimately get aired or at the very least, people are gonna be poking around in emails and other documents, and, and, you know, talking to people under oath in ways that, that I think would make the league uncomfortable.

Charles, I just want to ask you real quick, what do you think the odds are that these guys just play it out because the NFL’s playbook on it, look, and the NFL’s arbitration process has always been kind of trash, and they overstepped their bounds.

We all know that.

But I think a lot of people, how this is going to appeal to people is, Oh, the NFL is going to have to release all these emails and discovery.

This is all going to be public information.

Wow, okay.

How likely do you think it is Gruden and or Flores say, I don’t want your settlement check.

I want you to get aired out in court.

That’s what I want.

Because Gruden, I think, has said that this case has gone on so long that I can’t remember it, but I do remember a quote at the beginning of basically Gruden saying, and I’m paraphrasing in a, in a very general way, my coaching career in the NFL is probably over anyway.

I just want to get to the NFL court and arris.

So how likely do you think it is that it goes to that because everybody settles?

Hey, Kaepernick.

That was the one I was like, Oh, they’re going to go to court.

And then Kaepernick settled.

I was like, oh, that’s disappointing.

How, how likely do you think it is?

I will say this.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if this gets into the point of, um, where discovery is going to open or where this is getting pushed into, you know, a courtroom in, in, in front of a jury, I would be stunned if the NFL does not attempt, at the very least, to write a check and get this handled rather than go forward and have people rooting through emails and, you know, at least in the Gruden case.

You, whoever leaked the emails to the media, um, that ultimately led to Jon Gruden’s firing, that will come out.

Uh, it’s almost impossible that that would not come out in discovery.

So if that’s an individual, um, at 345 Park Avenue, it is in the NFL’s best interest to make sure they, they, um, obscure that individual’s identity in any way possible.

And the way to do it would be through money.

Will Jon Gruden & Brian Flores lawsuits change NFL arbitration forever?

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