But the NFLPA still hurts top performers. The joint negotiating in the NFL absolutely leads to the highest paid players being paid less than they would without a union. The revenue split, the franchise tag, the minimum salary, the rookie pay scale (arguable), and the veteran benefits all lead to less of the pie being available to the top tier players and less negotiating power. The salary escrow provision is a great example of an out-of-date rule that exists due to CBA negotiations and 100% hurts the top earners (while also providing zero actual benefits - it just existed because it has been there for decades and it's an effort to change anything when doing collective bargaining).

Not that I think any of this is bad since the NFL is brutal to its lowest earners, but it absolutely hurts the highest earners.

Someone else brought these two up elsewhere in this thread. Are there no examples of regular people who aren't making tens of millions of dollars a year?