Former Packer, NFLPA president withheld documentation of NFL owners colluding

JC Tretter called Russell Wilson a “wuss” in a text, leading to a potential cover-up.

Would you believe me if I told you that the NFL Players Association had withheld evidence of collusion between NFL owners from not only the public but also the players who were directly impacted by this collusion? That’s exactly what a 61-page document that Pablo Torre of Pablo Torre Finds Out revealed on Tuesday.

Here’s the quick synopsis of the 63-minute-long video:

• Following Deshaun Watson’s five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract extension in 2022, the NFLPA continued to push the priority of fully guaranteed contracts for NFL players, particularly star quarterbacks who generally have the most leverage of any players in the sport.
• After quarterbacks Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray tried and failed to lock in fully guaranteed contracts, the NFLPA, via the mechanisms in the collective bargaining agreement, filed a grievance against NFL owners on the basis of colluding against fully guaranteed contracts. This went to arbitration and ended up receiving expedited discovery.
• In discovery, it was learned that not only did the NFL Management Council tell all NFL owners that fighting against guaranteed contracts like Watson’s was a priority for the league in a closed-door 2022 meeting, but there was also an exchange between Dean Spanos (the Los Angeles Chargers’ owner) and Michael Bidwell (the Arizona Cardinals’ owner) that hints reveals collusion. After Bidwell signed Murray to a contract that was not fully guaranteed, Spanos congratulated him. Later in the conversation, Bidwell replied to Spanos, “I think many teams will be happy with it once they have a chance to review. Cleveland really screwed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guaranteed relatively ‘low.’”

If the NFLPA had this information on hand, why haven’t they been blasting the airwaves with this knowledge since they received the document? Well, that brings us into the second bombshell of the story.

Former NFLPA president and NFL offensive lineman JC Tretter, who has been out of the league since 2021, is alleged to have kept this document away from both the public and the players he represented. Why? Because in the document, he calls Wilson a “wuss” for not agreeing to a fully guaranteed contract.

Tretter, who the Green Bay Packers drafted, currently serves as the NFLPA’s Chief Strategy Officer, a role created for him by NFLPA Executive Director Lloyd Howell once Tretter’s eligibility as president expired. Howell, famously, was ushered in after an unorthodox and confidential NFLPA search — one where players claimed they were uninformed on their potential Executive Director candidates until the day of the voting. How bad was the disclosure? Per Tretter himself, only 48 of 128 player reps showed up to the meeting.

Aside from the fact that it can be perceived that Tretter hand-picked Howell just for Howell to turn around and create a job for Tretter, there are other concerns about Howell as the players' union’s Executive Director. Howell had never previously worked...