What’s good for the goose apparently isn’t good for the gander.
The NFL’s aggressive effort to end publication of annual NFL Players Association report cards resulted in a 26-page arbitration ruling that gave the league a hollow victory at best, since it failed to achieve the league’s broader goal of killing the entire project. The written decision also includes a footnote acknowledging that owners have engaged in the same behavior about which they were complaining.
“[T]he NFLPA is correct that there have been occasions in the past where owners or others engaged in public criticisms of Players and no known efforts were made by the NFL [Management Council], reasonable or otherwise, to curtail those comments,” arbitrator Scott E. Buchheit wrote at footnote 9 to the decision. “To the contrary, some were placed on NFL.com. While those situations are of course not before me to decide whether they violated Article 51, the fact remains that both parties could reasonably anticipate some flexibility on how Article 51 is applied.”
The opinion contains no specific instances of owner criticism of players. Two recent examples exist.
In October 2025, Jets owner Woody Johnson publicly complained about quarterback Justin Fields.
“It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that he’s got,” Johnson said about Fields. “If we can just complete a pass, it would look good.”
More recently, Bills owner Terry Pegula implicitly acknowledged that receiver Keon Coleman was a wasted second-round pick when attempting to blame the failed selection on the coaching staff.
The message to the NFLPA is obvious: The next time an owner publicly complains about a player, a grievance under Article 51 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement should immediately be filed.
And there quite possibly will be a next time, since the Friday memo from the league office to the teams (which overstated the outcome) contained no recommendation to curtail any future public criticisms of players.
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