Following the resignation of former NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell, former players association president and current chief strategy officer JC Tretter was considered a favorite to take over the leadership role. That is no longer the case, as Tretter resigned from his current role with the organization on Sunday, he told CBS Sports, and he will not pursue the executive director position. Longtime NFL linebacker and current NFLPA chief player officer Don Davis is reportedly the other frontrunner to land the role.
The decision comes as both the NFL and NFLPA have come under fire after Meadowlark Media's Pablo Torre uncovered a 61-page ruling stemming from a collusion grievance filed by the players against the league. While the arbitrator assigned to the case ultimately ruled in favor of the league, the findings revealed text messages shared between Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill in which they discussed the contracts given to quarterbacks Justin Herbert and Kyler Murray and criticized the Browns for the fully guaranteed deal given to Deshaun Watson. Even with that bombshell potential collusion, the NFLPA opted against releasing the ruling. Torre reported that decision was made, in part, to protect Tretter, whose own text messages criticizing Russell Wilson for failing to get a full guaranteed contract from the Broncos were including in the ruling.
"Over the last couple days, it has gotten very, very hard for my family. And that's something I can't deal with," Tretter told CBS Sports' Jonathan Jones. "So, the short bullet points are: I have no interest in being [executive director]. I have no interest in being considered; I've let the executive committee know that. I'm also going to leave the NFLPA in the coming days because I don't have anything left to give the organization.
"I want to get my story out there, and I don't want it to look like this was sour grapes or I didn't get the job and I wanted the job. All I want to do is tell my story and then go be with my family."
Torre's initial report indicated that Tretter was instrumental in the shrouded process by which Howell landed the executive director job, supported by Howell creating the chief strategy officer to keep Tretter on with the NFLPA after his retirement from football. Tretter denies the idea that Howell was his handpicked choice for executive director in 2023, revealing that in the executive committee's straw poll between Howell and former SAG-AFTRA director David White, Howell lost by a 10–1 vote, with Tretter voting with the majority. The committee opted against sharing that result with the board of representatives from the 32 NFL rosters, and Howell outperformed White in that process, ultimately winning the job.
"So the idea that I was jamming anybody through was false," Tretter told CBS.
Tretter addressed his texts about the Wilson contract negotiations with Denver, which were ultimately used against the NFLPA in a grievance against the league.
"So, the day the news broke, I sent an angry text to De [former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith] calling him a 'f—ing loser.' I did that," Tretter said. "That was before the idea of collusion had even come up; months later is when we launched the collusion grievance where we got word—or De got word—there could be some collusion going on. And that's why I said in my deposition: If he was colluded against, I would not have said that. I would've apologized because I didn't know he was working against other factors. Sorry. My expectation was I didn't just naturally think the NFL was breaking the [collective bargaining agreement]."
He also called remarks made on a podcast in which he appeared to say that his fellow players should fake injuries to preserve leverage in contract negotiations, which was covered by Torre in his second episode of the podcast on the subject, "a dumb tongue-in-cheek remark that I shouldn't have said."
Tretter says that he will "always be here for the guys" but he woke up Sunday comfortable with stepping away from the union after six weeks of "taking bullets" for the organization.
"I'm not resigning because what I've been accused of is true. … I'm not resigning in disgrace. I'm resigning because this has gone too far for me and my family, and I've sucked it up for six weeks. And I felt like I've been kind of left in the wind taking shots for the best of the organization," he said.
So now the NFLPA will move on without Howell—whose resignation was due in part to the discovery that he charged the union for a pair of expensive strip club outings, per ESPN—and Tretter, who is trying to maintain his distance from Howell's transgressions and is now stepping away from the union for which he served two terms as president.
