The NFL Players Association’s new executive director has begun to establish his identity in the role.
After a business-forward director followed by a labor and legal-focused director, J.C. Tretter reiterated in interviews Tuesday with The Athletic and “The Pat McAfee Show” that his experience as a player will define, shape and guide his approach to the executive director role.
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That will influence when and whether the NFL expands to an 18-game regular season in the coming years; how the NFL navigates debate around grass and turf surfaces; and how the union advocates for players.
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Tretter pointed to his experience playing, as well as an NFLPA survey that showed 92% of players prefer playing on natural grass to turf, as examples of how he’ll lean on data to make decisions.
The combination of Tretter’s playing background and academic experience studying industrial and labor relations at Cornell won him an election that in the fall seemed he would not win.
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Less than a year ago, Tretter resigned from his role as chief strategy officer after the executive director whose election he’d overseen resigned. Allegations including expensing strip club visits and burying a collusion agreement contributed to Lloyd Howell’s resignation after just two years on the job.
The NFL’s executive committee did not endorse Tretter as its favorite candidate in last week’s meeting of player representatives, a source with knowledge of the meetings confirmed to Yahoo Sports. The 11 executive committee members each ranked the finalists publicly before the players voted. None of the three candidates got a majority (six of 11) of first-place votes, the source said. Tretter received the second-most first-place votes among candidates.
Tretter spent eight years as an NFL offensive lineman after playing for Cornell. The Green Bay Packers selected him in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft. After three seasons on the depth chart in Green Bay, Tretter went on to five seasons as the Cleveland Browns’ starting center.
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As player president, he worked with union and league officials to negotiate COVID-19 protocols that kept the season intact as other sports leagues missed games. He also developed and executed the NFLPA’s “report card” surveys that gave players an anonymous outlet to evaluate their team’s facilities, staffs and more. The union executed its fourth round of surveys this past season, though for the first time the union did not release the results publicly after the league won a grievance ruling barring the public dissemination of the information. ESPN nonetheless obtained the results and published them.
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