The NFL season doesn’t kick off for another five months, but the Cardinals have already tallied their first loss, this one in court.

An NFL arbitrator appointed by commissioner Roger Goodell awarded Terry McDonough, the team’s former vice president of player personnel, $3 million for “defamatory statements” the team made about him, according to a Monday filing in Arizona federal court. (The same arbitrator denied McDonough’s contract-based claims of retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.)

The arbitration request was originally directed to Goodell almost a year ago. In the filing, McDonough accused Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill of ordering him to break NFL rules: He claims that Bidwill wanted him and then coach Steve Wilks to communicate via burner phones with the team’s GM, Steve Keim, during the 2018 training camp, a period when Keim was suspended, stemming from a DUI arrest.