After several reports exposed NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter’s involvement in supposed coverups regarding arbitration rulings that were not shared with union membership, the former Cleveland Browns center has resigned from his post.
In an exclusive interview with CBS NFL insider Jonathan Jones, Tretter addressed the wide-ranging allegations against him and the reporting that has already led to NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell’s resignation.
“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. “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.”
Previous reporting by Meadowlark Media’s Pablo Torre suggested that Tretter strategically installed Howell as a quid pro quo, subsequently landing the chief strategy officer position with eyes to eventually become the NFLPA’s executive director. After Howell’s resignation late last week, Tretter’s name emerged as a candidate for the interim executive director position.
Tretter tells CBS that Torre’s reporting on the situation is incorrect, and that there was no quid pro quo. In fact, Tretter explains that Howell was not the executive committee’s top choice during the hiring process. That committee favored former SAG-AFTRA director David White by a vote of 10-1, with Tretter voting with the majority.
“So the idea that I was jamming anybody through was false,” Tretter said.
Questions about Tretter’s role in the union began to circulate last month when Torre and Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio revealed a previously undisclosed arbitration ruling that showed NFL clubs seemingly colluded to ensure guaranteed contracts for veteran players did not get out of hand in the wake of Deshaun Watson’s unprecedented fully guaranteed deal. That ruling, Torre and Florio suggested, would’ve been beneficial to the union had it been made public, which raised questions about why it wasn’t.
Weeks later, Torre and Florio revealed a second arbitration ruling was kept in the shadows. This time, however, it was the NFLPA that would have hypothetically looked bad. Tretter, it was revealed, had spoken on a podcast in 2023 suggesting players could fake injuries as a form of leverage in contract negotiations.
“I knew at the moment I said it; it was a dumb tongue-in-cheek remark that I shouldn’t have said,” Tretter told CBS.
It appeared as if the NFL kept the arbitration ruling out of the public eye to avoid embarrassing Tretter and the NFLPA, and the union returned the favor when it came to the collusion case a year later.
“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,” Tretter said.
“… I got to the point this morning where I woke up and I realized, like, I am going to keep dying on this f—ing sword forever of, I’ll never, ever be able to do what’s best for me. And I will always pick what’s best for the organization. And in the end, what’s the organization done for me? Like, nothing.
“I’ve been a bullet shield for six weeks for them where everything that’s been controversial, it just all dumps down on me, and I’ve had nothing to f—ing do with it. And that’s when I was like, I’m done taking bullets for the [organization] on stuff I wasn’t a part of and did not do.”