Former NFL center and NFL Player Association president JC Tretter is resigning from his role as the union’s chief strategy officer, he told CBS Sports in an interview Sunday.
Tretter was seen as the likely frontrunner to take over as the NFLPA’s executive director on an interim basis following the resignation of Lloyd Howell on Thursday. Tretter removed himself from that conversation, and then some.
While Howell’s documented indiscretions have piled up throughout the summer, Tretter’s name appeared in the latest report by the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, covering a second arbitration ruling that was kept under wraps on the topic of fake injuries.
A grievance filed in 2023 complained that Tretter suggested players can fake injuries as a tactic in contract negotiations. The arbitrator in the case determined on Feb. 20 of this year that his comments violated the collective bargaining agreement.
“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 Sports.
Yet there were greater issues for Tretter inside the NFLPA offices.
Tretter, who played for the Green Bay Packers and Cleveland Browns from 2013-21, told CBS Sports he has faced internal accusations “of being this all-controlling, all-powerful person” that set up the union to fail by installing Howell as executive director.
“I don’t have any proof of this,” Tretter said. “I think a lot of the attacks on me came from inside the building over the last six weeks. And I don’t want to walk inside that building anymore.”
Howell stepped down Thursday night to no longer be a “distraction” for the NFLPA. The next day, an ESPN report detailed multiple instances of Howell expensing trips to a Miami strip club to the union’s account.
That was only the latest issue with Howell. “Pablo Torre Finds Out” revealed that Howell agreed to a confidentiality agreement with the NFL after an arbitrator determined that there wasn’t sufficient evidence of collusion between owners, but that there was “a clear preponderance of the evidence” to suggest commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL’s general counsel encouraged owners to restrict guaranteed money in player contracts.
And Howell was found to be serving in a part-time consulting role for The Carlyle Group, one of a small handful of private equity firms that the NFL has approved to pursue minority ownership in franchises.
Tretter disputed the idea that Howell created the position of chief strategy officer for him as a quid pro quo for helping him get appointed executive director.
“I’m not resigning because what I’ve been accused of is true,” Tretter. “… 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.”
“… 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.”
–Field Level Media
