Broncos Clips
The NFL’s in-house arbitration process isn’t dead, but it’s on the verge of a TKO.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the NFL’s petition for appeal in the Brian Flores case.
From the 25-page document submitted by the league in January 2026, this is the question the NFL presented to the U.S. Supreme Court: “Whether an arbitration agreement governing disputes in a professional sports league is categorically unenforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act because it designates the league commissioner as the default arbitrator and permits the commissioner to develop arbitral procedures.”
The league wisely made the question narrow, in order to avoid the possibility that the league’s arbitration process would be taken to its logical extreme. If the NFL can make the Commissioner the default arbitrator for any employment disputes or other legal claims made by employees, every American corporation could make the CEO the default arbitrator for any employment disputes or other legal claims made against it by its employee.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had found that the NFL’s arbitration agreement was not enforceable due to the Commissioner’s power over the process. The decision not to take the appeal doesn’t operate as an agreement by the Supreme Court; however, if the Supreme Court wanted to endorse the league’s longstanding in-house process, it could have taken up the case and then reversed the outcome.
The current legal posture doesn’t prevent the NFL from arguing its position in cases that arise in other courts. However, there’s now a clear path to suing the NFL and avoiding the mandatory arbitration clauses in non-player employment contracts by suing the NFL in New York federal court — since the Southern District of New York falls within the Second Circuit.
As to Flores, the development means that his claims against the NFL, Dolphins, Broncos, Giants, and Texans (and the claims made by Steve Wilks against the Cardinals and Ray Horton against the Titans) will be resolved by the judicial process. With full discovery. And, absent a settlement or a successful motion for summary judgment, with a trial in open court. All facts will be introduced and developed and exposed to public scrutiny.
That could spark a settlement, sooner than later. The league uses arbitration due in part to its desire to keep its business secret. Unless it goes away, the Flores case could result in all sorts of things the NFL would rather us not know playing out in the public eye.
Broncos linebacker Nik Bonitto had a career-high 14 sacks last season despite playing almost the whole year with a large cast over his right hand and wrist. But when he looks to 2026, his focus isn’t on being physically healthier.
Bonitto told Luca Evans of the Denver Post that his continued growth as a player will be about the mental side of the game.
“I mean, it really has nothing to do with the physical part of it,” he said.
Bonitto has led the Broncos in sacks the last two years, which means opposing teams base their pass protection schemes on keeping him away from their quarterbacks. Bonitto says he can still work on how he can respond to that, both by making plays and by opening opportunities for his teammates.
“Being able to see what it’s like to actually have a protection plan around me,” Bonitto said. “And how to work through those things and continue to find ways to make plays, and also help other guys make plays while we’re at it — while I’m commanding those chips and double-teams, and stuff like that.”
Bonitto signed a four-year, $106 million contract at the start of last season, and he gave the Broncos their money’s worth in 2025. He’s eager to get even better in 2026.
The Broncos have signed both of their fourth-round picks from this April’s draft.
They announced the signing of running back Jonah Coleman on Wednesday. They also confirmed that they have wrapped up offensive lineman Kage Casey’s four-year rookie deal.
Coleman had 156 carries for 758 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns during his final season at Washington. He also caught 31 passes for 354 yards and two scores.
J.K. Dobbins and RJ Harvey are the top two returning backs for the Broncos, which will leave Coleman to battle with Jaleel McLaughlin, Tyler Badie and Cody Schrader for spots deeper on the backfield depth chart.
The Broncos are set to sign another one of their draft picks.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the team has agreed to terms with fourth-round offensive lineman Kage Casey. Casey is expected to sign the four-year deal on Tuesday.
Casey was a three-year starter at left tackle at Boise State and was a first-team all-conference selection in the Mountain West in his final two seasons at the school. The Broncos have Garett Bolles and Mike McGlinchey returning at tackle, but there’s been some talk of Casey getting a look at guard as well.
The Broncos have two other unsigned picks in third-round defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim and fourth-round running back Jonah Coleman.
When quarterback Malik Willis agreed to sign with the Dolphins in March, Jaylen Waddle was on the team and was expected to be the club’s leading receiver.
But that changed in a hurry, as days later, Miami traded Waddle to Denver for several draft picks.
How did Willis react to the news of the trade?
“It was unfortunate for sure, to say the least,” Willis told reporters in his Tuesday press conference, via transcript from the team. “That’s a really good player and I would have loved to play with him, but that’s above my pay grade, brother. Out of my hands.”
While Willis’ group of receivers is certainly different without Waddle, the quarterback is still establishing chemistry now during the later stages of the offseason program with players like Malik Washington and Jalen Tolbert.
“I think all of them have been doing a great job from top to bottom,” Willis said of Miami’s wideouts. “Everybody has the right mindset to come in and work and just do the best that they can to show what they can do.
“I feel like it’s an opportunity for all of us. It’s a bunch of new faces, whether it’s rookies or guys that have been here, but we’re all in front of new guys for the first time, and we got to try to continue to show what we can do.”
The news that Aaron Rodgers is officially back with the Steelers for his 22nd NFL season means he’ll continue to add to one of the most impressive statistical résumés any quarterback has ever assembled.
Of particular note is that Rodgers is likely to move ahead of Peyton Manning for the third-most touchdown passes in NFL history. Rodgers has thrown 527 touchdown passes in his NFL career, while Manning retired with 539, so Rodgers needs just 13 touchdown passes to move ahead of Manning. As long as Rodgers stays healthy, he should eclipse Manning’s career total early in the season.
Rodgers would likely need to play two more seasons to move into second place, which is currently occupied by Drew Brees, with 571 career touchdown passes. And Tom Brady’s all-time record of 649 career touchdown passes appears insurmountable.
Rodgers could also lose, a couple of of the career records he currently holds, however. At the moment, Rodgers is tied for the highest career passer rating in NFL history: Rodgers and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson both have a passer rating of 102.2. But last year Jackson’s passer rating was 103.8 and Rodgers’ was 94.8, so if they both play at the same level in 2026, Jackson will take first place in the record books all to himself.
Rodgers could also fall behind Joe Burrow (101.1) and Patrick Mahomes (100.8), who are currently third and fourth in NFL history in career passer rating. The best career passer rating is a record Rodgers likely won’t hold by the end of the season.
Another career record Rodgers could lose is the all-time lowest interception percentage. Rodgers has thrown 123 interceptions in 8,743 career passes, a career interception rate of 1.41 percent. Rodgers is just barely ahead of Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who has a career interception rate of 1.42 percent, and not far ahead of Justin Herbert at 1.7 percent and Burrow and Mahomes at 1.8 percent.
Ultimately, the numbers Rodgers puts up this season, when he’ll turn 43 years old, won’t matter a lot to his legacy. He’s an all-time great regardless of what he does this season. But his career numbers will change, and perhaps not entirely for the better.
The Chiefs didn’t make the playoffs in 2025, but the release of the schedule for the 2026 season showed that the NFL still sees them as a marquee attraction.
Kansas City is scheduled for six primetime games and two of them come in the first two weeks of the season. They’ll be home against the Broncos on Monday night in Week 1 and back at Arrowhead Stadium to face the Colts on Sunday night in Week 2.
The scheduling suggests that the league believes Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes will be playing after recovering from last season’s torn ACL, but their head coach Andy Reid said on NFL Network Thursday that the team did not speak to the league about Mahomes’s health as part of the scheduling process. Reid did give another positive update on how things are going, however.
“He’s doing great right now and that’s kinda how you gotta go about this,” Reid said. “People go ‘well, he’s ahead of schedule.’ Who made the schedule? Everybody’s different, let’s just take it day by day. Nobody is spending more time than he is rehabbing, he spends seven hours here going through it. He hasn’t missed a day and he wants more, all the things that are Patrick Mahomes. Let’s see where we are at as we go forward as we get a little bit closer to the game.”
Broncos quarterback Bo Nix is coming off of a broken ankle and Reid joked that the league might have scheduled that as the opener as “motivation” for the two quarterbacks as they rehab, but said the scheduled won’t determine any of the team’s plans.
“He’s making progress, but you don’t know,” Reid said. “That’s the reality of it. You’re not going to put the player in a position where he can’t tend to himself on the football field.”
The league will continue to pay close attention to that progress in hopes of welcoming Mahomes back to the field on a grand stage.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
The Rams and Seahawks played three nail-biters during the 2025 season and the NFL is banking on another one on Christmas night.
The matchup of NFC West teams will cap a three-game slate on Christmas this year. The Friday night game on December 25 will take place in Seattle and it will be broadcast by Fox.
Los Angeles won 21-19 at home last November, but lost 38-37 in overtime in Seattle later in the regular season. The final meeting between the clubs came in the NFC Championship Game and was a 31-27 Seahawks win.
Netflix will kick off the day’s games with a doubleheader that starts with the Packers visiting the Bears at 1 p.m. ET. The Bills will be in Denver at 4:30 p.m. ET in a rematch of last season’s divisional round game that the Broncos won in overtime.
With Christmas Eve falling on a Thursday, there will also be a game on Amazon Prime Video that night. The Eagles will travel to Houston to face the Texans, so all four games around the Christmas holiday will feature matchups of teams that were in the playoffs last season.
The NFL announced the matchups for its first Thanksgiving Eve game and all three Thanksgiving games ahead of Thursday night’s schedule reveal, so the only thing left to announce for the three-day holiday spread of games was the Black Friday matchup.
That game will feature the Broncos visiting the Steelers in a game that will start at 3 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.
It will be the first time that either franchise has played a Black Friday game. The NFL first held a game on the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league is considering ways to add a second game.
That is what they’ve done with the Thanksgiving Eve game. It will involve the Packers visiting the Rams on Wednesday night in a game broadcast by Netflix.
Thanksgiving’s schedule will start in Detroit as usual. The Lions will host the Bears at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and the Eagles will visit the Cowboys on Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET. Thursday’s action will conclude with the Chiefs in Buffalo to face the Bills at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
