In the ruthless NFL, everyone is disposable. Everyone.

In the ruthless NFL, everyone is disposable. Everyone.

Nothing, not even the brutal realities of the sport itself, can stop the NFL. This weekend, as another regular season stomps to a close, we’re reminded of its dominance. While ambivalent retiree Tom Brady might criticize today’s football, believing it has tumbled into “mediocrity,” millions of fans have shrugged and continued to tune in anyway. Ratings are up. According to Nielsen, among the 100 most-watched broadcasts of 2023, 93 were NFL games. ESPN/ABC’s “Monday Night Football” attracted its most viewers since its move to the cable network 17 years ago. Sadly for the NBA, because Christmas — the holiday that the league uses for its showcase slate — fell on a Monday, three football games and even three pregame shows dwarfed a Los Angeles Lakers-Boston Celtics matchup.

And with several division titles still up for grabs and a surplus of teams still alive — amazingly, three representatives from the toilet water known as the NFC South have something to play for — there are few games with low stakes this weekend. Just another reason the NFL will keep us in front of our screens, again, capturing all of our attention and all of the ratings. No doubt the NFL will eclipse its 2022 national revenue of $11.98 billion, shared among the 32 teams.

No league has ever been so lucrative.

No league has ever been so ruthless.

That’s the word to best describe the Denver Broncos threatening to bench starting quarterback Russell Wilson in October if he did not adjust his contract and address an injury guarantee tied to a $37 million offseason payment.

And merciless — another word that comes to mind — as in the way the Indianapolis Colts granted three-time all-pro linebacker Shaquille Leonard the meeting in November he had requested to talk about playing time but the next day informed him that he was being waived.

Also, let’s try conniving, calculating and conspiratorial, which could describe the other 31 NFL team owners who refused to offer Lamar Jackson a contract this past offseason after the Baltimore Ravens hit him with a nonexclusive franchise tag, which should’ve opened up a free agency bonanza for the superstar.

All of these examples show why players want (and deserve) guaranteed money — and why owners are too shameless to give it.

The disposability of the players, combined with the collusion between owners who at times have shown more loyalty to their billionaire peers than to their pursuit of competitiveness, should make watching NFL games a dispiriting hobby, like another old tradition. In the post-#MeToo era, we’ve become less eager to watch women objectified in beauty contests, so the audience for the 100-plus-year-old “Miss America” pageant has taken a hit. Typically, we grow out of established yet problematic institutions. We know better, then we do better. Yet with the NFL, we keep watching.

Eliminated from the postseason for the eighth straight year, the Broncos will visit another Cabo-bound team in the Las Vegas Raiders this Sunday. That fact probably won’t matter to the viewing public in the Rockies. Nor, I imagine, will the Broncos decision-makers’ coldblooded treatment of Wilson douse enthusiasm for their Week 18 finale.

Less than two years after kinging Wilson as their franchise quarterback and offering him a five-year, $245 million contract extension, the Broncos clearly have experienced buyer’s remorse. But rather than just releasing Wilson and eating the cost if he got injured (a Wal-Mart heir owns the Broncos; they can afford it), the team resorted to dirty tricks to try to protect its books.

The threat to bench Wilson was illegal, according to a letter sent by NFL Players Association attorney Jeffrey Kessler to the team back in November. The threat, Kessler wrote, also violated the collective bargaining agreement. More so, the threat should have been eye-opening. If a team can strong-arm Wilson — a franchise quarterback (meaning he’s the most important player on the roster), a Super Bowl champion (meaning he’s a winner) and a Walter Payton Man of the Year honoree (meaning he’s the epitome of the type of player and citizen the NFL wants to highlight) — then everybody in an NFL locker room is expendable.

As Leonard learned after that fateful meeting with the Colts.

Just two seasons ago, Leonard, whose larger-than-life image graces the exterior of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, was the heart and soul of the Colts’ defense, the punch-out specialist who led the league with eight forced fumbles. That season he earned first-team all-pro honors, but his body paid for it. Leonard missed all but three games in 2022 while recovering from back surgery. This season, Leonard’s playing time decreased because of his lack of explosiveness, though he felt he was close to being the player of 2021. He openly addressed this disappointment with reporters, and by November, the Colts responded.

“It was shocking,” Leonard said the day he was cut. “I asked for a November meeting. I guess I got a November meeting. I guess you’ve got to be careful what you ask for.”

But showing the ability to sprinkle kindness with their callousness, the Colts provided a parting gift to Leonard, updating the massive banner outside the stadium with a message: “Thank you for the memories.”

The Ravens never had to wish an extravagant goodbye to their main man Jackson because other teams clearly had no use for a franchise-altering, championship-chasing MVP candidate. It’s beyond imagination that in a league that prioritizes quarterbacks, no other team worked a deal to get Jackson over the summer — even if it would have cost a ransom and even if it would have required two first-round draft picks. Or that teams such as the Atlanta Falcons, New York Giants and Washington Commanders could look at the 2019 most valuable player and honestly go, “Nah, we’d rather have our guy and keep our picks!”

The only explanation that makes sense is the simplest one: collusion among NFL owners. If the history-making guaranteed $230 million contract the Cleveland Browns gave Deshaun Watson made owners skittish, then their hesitancy showed in the lack of pursuit for Jackson. It eliminated a bidding war that should have eclipsed Watson’s numbers, and it allowed the Ravens to work out an extension with Jackson that included $185 million guaranteed. Not chump change, indeed, but not Watson money, either.

Wilson, Leonard and Jackson will be just fine financially. They weren’t wronged to the extent that an average adult should harbor sympathy for their plight. They were, however, just more examples of how this filthy rich league treats the workers who make the NFL so fun. We tune in to watch if Wilson can still cook, to see Leonard run around like a maniac and to witness Jackson redefine the quarterback position. But being the giant that it is, the NFL and its teams toss their weight around, crushing any semblance of decency. And they will keep getting away with it, even under our watchful eyes.