Why Calvin Ridley’s NFL Suspension Will Likely Stand Through The 2022 Season

Last week, the National Football League suspended Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Calvin Ridely indefinitely, and at least through the 2022 season, for betting on NFL games. Some NFL pundits have suggested this suspension “seems like an awful lot” given that Ridley only bet $1500 and bet exclusively on his own team to win. However, from the sports law perspective, Ridley’s suspension is about as ironclad as any the league has handed down in recent years.

The National Football League is a unionized workplace where the 32 NFL teams are required, pursuant to the National Labor Relations Act, to bargain with their players over hours, wages, and working conditions. Player suspensions fall firmly within the category of being working conditions.

The agreement reached between the NFL teams and their players over these terms is set forth in writing in the league collective bargaining agreement, which includes 70 articles and 17 appendices. The first appendix to the NFL collective bargaining agreement is the standard NFL Player Contract, which, in essence, is part of the league collective bargaining agreement because it is incorporated by reference into the CBA.

Paragraph 15 of the NFL Player Contract, which is entitled “Integrity of the Game,” places certain affirmative obligations on NFL players to avoid engaging in conduct that would result in the “impairment of public confidence in the honest and orderly conduct of NFL games or the integrity and good character of NFL players.” This paragraph specifically empowers the Commissioner “to suspend [a player] for a period certain or indefinitely” if the player “bets on an NFL game.”

The explicit nature of Paragraph 15’s prohibition of players betting on NFL games can be contrasted with most other forms of alleged wrongdoing by NFL players that is only addressed in that paragraph in generalities. For example, Paragraph 15 does not specifically reference arrest for drunk driving, alleged assault, child abuse, or many of the other forms of misconduct for which the NFL has attempted to suspend players in recent years. Nor does Paragraph 15 of the NFL Player Contract explicitly reference any other form of betting activity unrelated to NFL games.

Thus, in this sense, it can be presumed that the NFL players’ union has agreed to league punishment for betting on NFL games, where it is less clear that an agreement on player suspensions was contemplated in bargaining for some of these other acts.

Of course, none of this is not to suggest that the NFL would be legally safe to ban Ridley for life. Lifetime suspensions present a tricky matter for labor arbitrators as a matter of public policy. As MLB labor arbitrator George Nicolau once explained in a hearing involving former Major League Baseball player Steve Howe, a lifetime ban would constitute the “ultimate sanction” because it perpetually prevents an individual from practicing his trade. Thus, a lifetime ban may present a unique legal analysis.

Nevertheless, presuming the NFL’s current suspension of Ridley is deemed as comparable to a simple one-year ban from the league, this suspension should not trigger these same kinds of concerns as other recent player punishments handed down by Goodell. Indeed, the NFL’s one-year suspension of a player for betting on NFL games seems to be very much within the framework set forth by the NFL and its players in collective bargaining.

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Marc Edelman ([email protected]) is a Professor of Law at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, Sports Ethics Director of the Robert Zicklin Center on Corporate Integrity, and the founder of Edelman Law. He is the author of “Are Commissioner Suspensions Any Different from Illegal Group Boycotts” and “Standing to Kneel.”