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.
Titans Clips
On the outside, the Titans’ decision to use the fourth overall pick in the draft on receiver Carnell Tate was a surprise. On the inside, it was a no-brainer.
Eventually, it will be time for Tate and the Titans to prove that the right decision was made.
Quarterback Cam Ward firmly believes that will happen.
“He’ll have an explosive year just because he’ll get a lot of one-on-one matchups,” Ward said last week, in an article posted Monday morning by Turron Davenport of ESPN. “That’s what we want. We want guys to come down and play man [coverage] because we think we can beat him.
“He’s got great hands, wins in man coverage, and he’s a strider,” Ward said.
Tate knows that his ability to thrive in the NFL will begin with his ability to get off the line of scrimmage.
“In the NFL, you have to know how to win against press coverage,” Tate said. “That’s all it’s about. You have to take that very personal. . . . The team is going to rely on you to go out there and win that one-on-one matchup with the top corner on the other side of you.”
It also will be important to use Tate the right way. The Titans envision him to be the X receiver in the offense, which will put him on the ball and force him to get past the man who is trying to keep him from getting into his route.
“I think this is one of the best offenses he could be in just because he’s going to get coached, but he’s not going to get overcoached, and he’s going to still be able to play football how he sees it,” Ward said.
The challenge with having a high pick comes from nailing it. Beyond whether the selected player flourishes, it’s inevitable that one of the men that was left on the board will.
That’s the downside of having dibs at the top of the draft. Picking — and properly developing — the right player can change everything. Getting it wrong is one of the reasons bad teams stay bad.
The Titans are optimistic they got it right. With summer unofficially beginning, we’ll begin to find out whether they did in the days after summer unofficially ends.
New Titans head coach Robert Saleh made an immediate change in Tennessee when he got the job four months ago: He ensured that players wouldn’t eat seed oils at the team facility.
“One of the first things we did here was get rid of all the seed oils in the building, which I think the players appreciate,” Saleh said.
There’s a growing movement, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to get seed oils (oils extracted from plants, such as corn oil and canola oil) out of Americans’ diets. Many fitness influencers claim that seed oils lead to obesity and heart disease. The majority of nutrition scientists, however, agree with the American Heart Association’s stance that there’s no reason to avoid seed oils.
Saleh said that the Titans have a great staff who have provided the players with first-rate nutrition.
“I’ve been in six different buildings and I’d put this staff up there with the best of them,” Saleh said. “The product they put out in the cafeteria daily is outstanding.”
Titans quarterback Cam Ward’s right shoulder injury from Week 18 of last season is feeling like a distant memory as the team progresses through its offseason program.
Head coach Robert Saleh declared Ward “perfectly healthy” on Thursday and said that the first overall pick of the 2025 draft has been “slinging the ball” at the team’s OTA workouts this week. Ward is also getting used to playing with a leaner frame after cutting 10 pounds this offseason.
“I’m trying to get a little bit leaner, and then just trying to stay durable for a long season,” Ward said, via the team’s website. “It’s really watching the calorie limit, watching the amount of protein and the amount of carbs I need to put in, and what is best for my body and how I feel. I just think [the weight loss] will help me with durability, being faster, getting up in the pocket, and then just trying to play to my speed and not no one else’s speed.”
Ward’s health allows him to get a lot of reps in the new offense that offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is installing for the 2026 season. It also means a lot of work with first-round wideout Carnell Tate on building the kind of chemistry that can help make the Titans a winning team in the near future.
Who doesn’t like a #RevengeGame to start the season?
One such matchup will occur between the Jets and Titans, with Tennessee now employing Robert Saleh as head coach.
Saleh spent 2021-2024 as New York’s head coach before he was fired after Week 5 with a 2-3 start. Now, after a season back with the 49ers as the club’s defensive coordinator, Saleh has another chance to be a head coach with the Titans.
While it will surely be a storyline at the beginning of September, Saleh told reporters on Thursday that he’s not making very much of opening the year against his former club.
“I’ve said it before, I’m appreciative of the Jets and everything that I had,” Saleh said, via Turron Davenport of ESPN. “It’s been over a year and a half now. In the NFL, it’s kind of like 10 years.
“It’s to be expected with the NFL, but I don’t think anything of it.”
That’s at least Saleh’s public stance. We’ll see if something comes up once the players are between the white lines in September.
The Titans announced a significant addition to their front office on Wednesday.
They have hired Dave Gardi as their executive vice president of football operations. Gardi spent the last two seasons as the senior vice president of football initiatives for the Commanders and the previous 21 years in the NFL’s league office.
“We’re thrilled to have Dave join us here in Nashville,” General Manager Mike Borgonzi said in a statement. “He’s extremely respected around the NFL and brings a plethora of experience and valuable perspective, molded together by two decades at the league office, in addition to time on the club side of operations. Dave will make an immediate impact here with the Titans and we’re excited to welcome him and his family to Tennessee.”
Gardi’s hire comes after president of football operations Chad Brinker stepped down last month. The Titans’ announcement of the hire says Gardi will report directly to Borgonzi under the new structure at the top of the organization.
Nashville’s new stadium is on track to open for big events next spring, and for the Tennessee Titans to play their home games there in the 2027 season.
Titans President and CEO Burke Nihill said today that progress is continuing on schedule.
“The stadium is still scheduled to be completed some time early next spring, late winter, some time in February, likely. We are targeting probably April or so for first big events,” Nihill said.
It’s a massive job, but it’s getting closer, with the roof being built now and finishing touches put on once the roof has protected the inside from the elements.
“In terms of the construction schedule, you can see every day with 2,000 people on site, it looks a little bit more like a completed stadium,” Nihill said. “That pace will continue. The roof is being assembled right now. Likely some time in September the roof will be sealed tight. Once the roof is sealed tight, we can really get going on design finishes and things that really need to wait until it’s protected from the elements.”
One big event is already on the schedule for New Nissan Stadium: Super Bowl LXIV in 2030.
Nashville is getting a new stadium. It’s also getting a Super Bowl.
As expected, NFL owners voted on Tuesday to make Nashville the host for Super Bowl LXIV, to be played in 2030.
For most new stadiums, a Super Bowl is part of the public-money quid pro quo. Even cold-weather cities are eligible, if the venue has a roof and if the city has the infrastructure (mainly hotel space) to absorb the full experience.
The real question for Nashville will be whether the 2030 experience goes well enough to make it part of the loose rotation of Super Bowl cities. Weather will be a factor.
An ice storm in Atlanta for its second Super Bowl (XXXIV, in early 2000) kept Georgia out of the loop until it was time to reward the region for building a second dome. Nineteen years passed before the Super Bowl returned to Atlanta for a third time. (Atlanta is getting another Super Bowl, nine years after its most recent one.)
Dallas still hasn’t had another Super Bowl since the second year of Jerry World, thanks to a weeklong ice debacle and the fairly significant problem arising from selling more tickets than there were available seats.
The next four Super Bowls are now set: L.A., Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Nashville. Los Angeles and Las Vegas have become obvious regular destinations. Nashville will, in four years, have a chance to join the unofficial rotation.
Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons has seen a lot of players come and go since joining the team in 2019 and one of this offseason’s departures hit him with particularly strong force.
Defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat was traded to the Jets in exchange for edge rusher Jermaine Johnson. Simmons said during an appearance on CBS Sports’ Offseason Playbook that he was caught off guard when Sweat called him with the news in March because he had taken on a mentorship role for a younger player he believed was headed for bigger things.
Simmons went on to call General Manager Mike Borgonzi for more of a download on why the team decided to go in that direction.
“It was a surprise to me,” Simmons said. “Just trying to get a feel for why. I feel like Sweat — he’s got some potential that sometimes he doesn’t understand. For me, that’s the reason why I’m like Sweat, you’re coming down to Dallas with me this offseason. I wanted to pull that out of him to be able to be like ‘I have so much potential. I can be the best nose tackle in the game of football.’ And he has the potential to do that. I hate it, but it’s a business.”
Sweat was a 2024 second-round pick in Tennessee, which meant he joined the team before Borgonzi and head coach Robert Saleh were in the organization. They determined Johnson was a better fit for where they want to go and a win-win trade would be a plus for a pair of AFC teams that haven’t been consistent winners in a long time.
A new stadium for the Titans is under construction in Nashville and it could soon become the home of Super Bowl LXIV as well.
NFL Media reports that NFL owners are expected to vote on awarding the game to Nashville at this week’s league meeting. The game would be played in 2030 and would be the first Super Bowl held in the city.
The new Nissan Stadium is expected to open in time for the 2027 season, which would give everyone several years to settle into the new digs before the Super Bowl would come to the city.
If Nashville is approved as the host for 2030, the league will have the next four Super Bowl cities lined up. The 2027 game will be in Los Angeles with Atlanta and Las Vegas on deck for 2028 and 2029.
