Eagles

No NFL Cancellations Because the Players Wanted to be Paid

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 22nd, 2021 · 12:37 PM EST

---

JC Tretter is the President of the NFL Players Association.

He spoke recently and pretty much confirmed that the reason games were postponed instead of cancelled/rescheduled is because the players wanted to be paid:

#Browns center JC Tretter, the NFLPA President, said the NFL wanted to cancel three games last week. Union had to push to get postponement so players got paid.

— Tom Withers (@twithersAP) December 22, 2021

Tretter on the Raiders players who were angry about the postponement: “I was fighting for the same things for the Raiders players I was for the Browns players: to make sure everybody gets paid. I don’t think people realize how close those games were to being canceled.”

— Zac Jackson (@AkronJackson) December 22, 2021

This is the result of fine print in the NFL’s summer memo, which was easy to gloss over. You know the memo I’m talking about, right? It was the one where it explained how players can lose that week’s salary, but it actually can affect both teams depending on how the rescheduling process goes.

From the memo:

“If a game is cancelled and cannot be rescheduled within the current 18-week schedule due to a COVID outbreak, neither team’s players will receive their weekly paragraph 5 salary.”

So even though Washington was the team causing the issues, the Eagles were in danger of being dicked over due to late season complications in possibly trying to reschedule the game. They had already taken their bye week, and so the option was to move the game back two days and get paid, or risk moving it and not getting paid.

They won the game and got paid, so it worked out for them.