Getty Images

Last night’s report from ESPN that the NFLPA board of player representatives will vote Tuesday on a new drug policy suggested that the league and union had struck a tentative agreement that simply needed to be approved.

But that’s not the case. There’s no agreement between the NFL and the NFLPA at this point. Instead, the NFLPA has asked the NFL to make a proposal on which the players could then vote.

The proposal first would have to be regarded as strong enough by union leadership to justify a vote. Ultimately, however, it’s up to the reps to accept or reject it.

The somewhat unorthodox protocol suggests that union leadership is caught between tough negotiations with the NFL and pressure from players to work out a deal in order to allow certain player suspensions to be overturned. At some point, NFLPA leadership needs to let the players decide what they want or don’t want.

“It’s not my decision to make,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said last month regarding the prospect of playing 18 regular-season games. That same mindset ultimately could apply in this case, especially if Smith is getting the sense that the players are willing to accept terms with which Smith doesn’t entirely agree, such as a one-game paid deactivation following a DUI arrest.

Today, Smith could decide to let the players decide whether they want a new drug policy. And it could be that the players ultimately decide they don’t want the terms of the proposal that comes from the league.