Roger

Goodell

This will be the first of three regular-season games the league will play in Rio de Janeiro over the next five years. Next year will mark the third-straight season the league has played in Brazil, after the Chargers and Chiefs faced off in São Paul, Brazil, to kick off this season, and the Packers and Eagles met in Week 1 of 2024. Next season’s game will mark the first time an NFL regular-season game has been played in Rio at Maracanã Stadium. The league has not announced which two teams will play in Brazil next season.

Sources tell The Athletic that “ESPN is expected to have access to RedZone, NFL Network, seven more regular-season games, the NFL’s fantasy football business, as well as the potential to integrate special features (including betting) and potentially more assets.” Programs will be available via “ESPN’s forthcoming direct-to-consumer service that will formally launch in the next few weeks,” which will cost $29.99 per month. Pricing for NFL Media programs is unknown, as is the deal’s duration. Regulatory approval is expected to take nine months to one year.

An investigation revealed that players, team employees and coaches from “roughly half of the NFL’s 32 teams” violated the CBA by selling tickets to a “small number of ‘bundlers’ who were working with a ticket reseller.” A memo from the league said, “players and employees who worked directly with the bundlers or ‘otherwise had a greater role ... will face increased penalties.’” Per the report, “players who violated the rule will be fined 1½ times the face ticket value and lose their allotted tickets to the next two Super Bowls.” Players who decline to pay the fine could be suspended by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Per Florio, the NFL and NFLPA agreed to pause everything in the post-ruling process indefinitely, but by choosing to file the appeal of the January 14 hearing, that’s no longer the case. It will now go forward, with a three-member appeals panel considering the ruling.

Maske reports “informal talks have not yet led to formal negotiations” for yet another lengthening of the NFL schedule, which was set at 16 games for many years before expanding to 17 games in 2021. In the coming months, the NFL players union plans to “continue to have conversations with players to inform a strategy” for negotiations with the league and its team owners about the details of an 18-game regular season. With NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell not pressuring the players union to jumpstart talks, the league could still be two years away from going to an 18-game schedule.

The NFL hasn’t held a Supplemental Draft that ended in a player being picked since 2019. We’ve come a long way from the golden days of Tony Hollings, folks.

Per multiple sources, NFL teams were sharing salary data “for every job in every NFL team,” from head coaching and general manager positions, on down to area scouts and assistant athletic trainers. PFT’s Mike Florio adds, the official position is that the information is no longer being provided for legal reasons, ostensibly because sharing such data could theoretically provide the employer with an advantage in negotiations. Florio does not believe the practice has ended, however, saying, “the unavailability of the spreadsheet doesn’t mean the practice of coordination/collusion has ended.”

PFT’s Mike Florio and Pablo Torre worked together to unearth the system arbitrator’s January 14, 2025 ruling, which both the NFL and the NFL Players Association refused to release. Florio reminds us that the owners’ meeting in question happened only days after the Browns gave a five-year, fully-guaranteed, $230 million contract to quarterback Deshaun Watson and only two years after the NFLPA tried, again, to make all player contracts fully guaranteed via the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Following Watson’s deal, the league didn’t want to concede full guarantees on a piecemeal basis, with one team at a time giving players fully-guaranteed deals until they became the norm. Ultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, the arbitrator ruled that he did not find a “‘clear preponderance’ of the evidence” that NFL teams accepted and acted on said encouragement.

Per Jackson, “Gov. Mike DeWine has a June 30 deadline to sign the state budget into law,” though he must first wait for state Senate approval. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell recently joined Browns owner Jimmy Haslam for a meeting with DeWine and other state leaders to help secure public money, per NBC Sports’ ProFootballTalk. Goodell proclaimed the theoretical Brook Park stadium “would clearly be Super Bowl material,” and would benefit Cleveland’s small businesses located roughly 20 minutes away. Although Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb intends to fight the move, per Jackson, “the team essentially said it will move forward even without the county’s support.” The desired new stadium would also host other events and can be viewed as an “entertainment complex.” For fantasy-point purposes, moving to an indoor stadium would have a positive impact on December games, leaving behind the at-times snowy environs of the Browns’ roofless Huntington Bank Field.

Per the Washington Post’s Mark Maske, Goodell said that the owners instead discussed “potential CBA issues with the NFLPA, including costs and salary cap matters.” The failed vote to ban the Tush Push took center stage this time around, but adding an 18th game to the NFL schedule will surely be discussed by team owners soon enough. Perhaps as early as one year from now.