Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson requested a fully guaranteed contract several times before he signed a record-breaking extension in 2023, according to testimony in a collusion grievance hearing between the NFL and the NFL Players Association.

The 61-page ruling by arbitrator Christopher Droney, published Tuesday by the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, found in January that the NFL Management Council, which polices the league’s salary cap, along with Commissioner Roger Goodell, had “encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans’ contracts at the March 2022 annual owners’ meeting.”

But Droney also found that NFL teams ultimately “did not join in such a collusive agreement” and dismissed the NFLPA’s arbitration demand that team owners colluded to deny certain players guaranteed compensation.

It was believed that Jackson had been seeking a fully guaranteed contract when he played out the 2022 season on the last year of his rookie deal, then demanded a trade the following March. In March 2022, quarterback Deshaun Watson had received a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract from the Cleveland Browns after getting traded by the Houston Texans.

Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti acknowledged less than two weeks later at the NFL owners meetings that the move could prove impactful on the quarterback market.

“It’s like, ‘Damn, I wish they hadn’t guaranteed the whole contract,’” Bisciotti said. “I don’t know that he should’ve been the first guy to get a fully guaranteed contract. To me, that’s something that is groundbreaking, and it’ll make negotiations harder with others.”

Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta, Bisciotti and Jackson were among the witnesses who testified last summer during the grievance hearing for the NFLPA’s collusion allegations. DeCosta, who by then had signed Jackson to a historic five-year, $260 million contract with $185 million guaranteed, testified that he is not opposed to fully guaranteed contracts, just fully guaranteed contracts “pushed out to later years.”

DeCosta said he knew a fully guaranteed contract was important to Jackson. But DeCosta “came to believe” in 2022 that Jackson would accept a non-fully guaranteed deal. His offer was not accepted, and Jackson told DeCosta that he would play out his fifth season in Baltimore without a new extension.

“I’m going to continue to request a FULLY GUARANTEED contract I understand you all DON’T and that’s fine,” Jackson wrote in a text to DeCosta, according to the ruling.

At one point, then-NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith emailed Jackson, advising him to hold out for a fully guaranteed contract because he was “entitled to ... the largest fully guaranteed contract of all time.”

Negotiations resumed after the 2022 season, with Jackson again requesting a fully guaranteed deal. DeCosta offered Jackson a pair of three-year contracts that DeCosta “considered to be fully guaranteed,” but neither was accepted. After Jackson requested a trade in March 2023, he said the microphone on his phone “was not working, making communications with Mr. DeCosta difficult.”

Jackson never provided a list of teams he’d be interested in playing for, according to the ruling. Only a “couple” of teams had expressed interest in Jackson before the Ravens designated him with the nonexclusive franchise tag in March 2023, and afterward, “no team reached out directly to Mr. Jackson.”

The NFL later sent a memo to all teams notifying them that a person not certified by the NFLPA, a business partner of Jackson’s named Ken Francis, might be attempting to persuade team officials to enter into contract negotiations with Jackson.

Jackson, who’s never hired an agent, tweeted that Francis “never tried to negotiate for me.”

Bisciotti testified last year that some teams might not have been interested in Jackson because of the size of the contract he likely would have demanded, and suggested that other teams might have been dissuaded from trading for Jackson because, under the terms of the franchise tag, it would’ve cost them two first-round draft picks. DeCosta testified that other teams might not have pursued Jackson because of his playing style as a running quarterback; Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank told Droney that Jackson’s recent injury history was a factor in the team’s decision not to pursue him.

DeCosta was preparing for the 2023 NFL draft in late April “under the assumption that Mr. Jackson would no longer be playing for the Ravens,” according to the ruling, but when he sent Jackson a new contract offer on the eve of the draft, it was “quickly” accepted. Jackson agreed to the deal April 27, the first day of the NFL draft. He would go on to be named the league’s Most Valuable Player for the 2023 season.

“They say the best things come to those who wait,” DeCosta said after the first round of the 2023 draft. “We waited for a while, and here we are.”

In January, Droney found that the “circumstances” of Jackson’s pursuit of a fully guaranteed contract showed that the Ravens “were not acting in accordance with a collusive agreement, or that other teams chose to not make an offer to Jackson as part of a collusive agreement.”

A Ravens spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Droney’s ruling.

With Jackson’s salary cap hit set to reach $74.5 million in 2026 and 2027, DeCosta and his star quarterback are once again at the negotiating table to work on a new deal.

Earlier this month DeCosta told Jerry Coleman on the “BMore Baseball Podcast" that he had talked with Jackson before and after the draft and in person at the end of May.

“I think we’re in the introductory sort of stage of looking at what an extension might look like,” he said.

For his part, Jackson has declined to discuss specifics.

“You know I never discuss contract situations here,” he said last week after mandatory minicamp. “I don’t want to talk about it, if that’s OK with you.”