The NFL Players Association is closing in on electing a new executive director. Even if the NFLPA won’t say much, if anything, about the process.
Like the last election that resulted in the appointment of Lloyd Howell to the job (it did not go well), the union is operating in complete and total silence. No comments. No announcements. No disclosures. No transparency.
Over the weekend, multiple reports identified the three finalists for the job: interim executive director David White, former NFLPA president and former NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter, and American Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti.
The NFLPA will meet from March 13 to 18 in San Diego. Presumably, the session will culminate in the announcement of a new executive director.
In the absence of any on-the-record comments or (for the most part) off-the-record leaks, the media is left to rely upon the uncorroborated chatter that has emerged from folks connected to and/or on the periphery of the process.
The current thinking from those in a position to have an informed opinion is that Tretter will emerge with the job. Which marks a dramatic shift in the message he sent in July 2025, when he resigned from the NFLPA.
“I have no interest in being [executive director],” Tretter told Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports at the time. “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.”
What happened between then and now? Tretter has declined to comment on the about-face. (In fact, he won’t say whether he’s currently a candidate.)
If Tretter gets the job, it should be the first question asked, when the union makes Tretter available to the media.
Regardless, he’s reportedly a candidate. And if there were betting odds on the election (there’s probably a prediction market on it, somewhere), Tretter would be the favorite.
Since no one will say whether he’s a candidate, we’ll share something we’ve heard from someone who is in position to know. Tretter emerged late, with the NFLPA executive committee apparently overriding the official search process and adding him to the ballot.
Ultimately, the board of player representatives will cast ballots. The opinion of the executive committee ultimately doesn’t matter; Tretter has said that White, not Howell, was the executive committee’s overwhelming preference during the 2023 vote.
If not Tretter, then who? White has worked hard to stabilize an organization that was plunged into chaos last summer, starting with the reporting from Pablo Torre regarding union leadership’s inexplicable decision to hide a 61-page collusion grievance ruling that included a finding that the NFL was caught with both hands in the collusion cookie jar. (The arbitrator eventually found — despite strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary — that the teams did not accept the league’s invitation/urging to collude as to the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts. An appeal is pending.)
Eventually, Howell resigned. White arrived. It was believed from the get-go that White was interested in doing the job on something more than an interim basis. He now has the chance.
How does Pernetti fit into this? It’s unclear. Not only does he have no NFLPA experience, but he also has no labor experience. He was a long-time TV executive who shifted to sports management. He was the Rutgers Athletic Director, until he was forced out following his mishandling of a scandal involving the men’s basketball coach. There’s been little mention of that in media reports, as reporters potentially hedge their bets regarding the possibility that Pernetti will become the union’s new executive director and, in turn, a useful resource and/or source.
And it could happen. Pernetti’s best argument is a simple one. He should say this: “The only way to truly get beyond the Lloyd Howell mess is to get a fresh start. Tretter was responsible for the process that gave you Lloyd Howell. White was the only alternative. We need to break from the recent past and forge a future free from controversy, scrutiny, and scandal.”
Maybe the board will find itself in a tug of war between White and Tretter, with Pernetti emerging as a compromise candidate. And maybe that wouldn’t have happened if it were only White vs. Pernetti.
Regardless, those are the three choices. Other potentially qualified candidates (Domonique Foxworth, Matt Schaub, and Jeff Saturday) reportedly didn’t make the cut.
Why not give the board more, not fewer, options? Why not empower the board to go off the board for one of them?
As the saying goes, the voters aren’t nearly as powerful as the person who counts the votes. They’re also not nearly as powerful as the person who sets the ballot.
Will there be an effort to expand the pool of candidates? Will the board raise enough questions and concerns to prevent a winner from being declared?
The NFLPA’s current constitution has been drafted to ensure that the candidates presented to the board (no fewer than two and no more than four) will be whittled down to two with the winner being determined when one of them gets a majority of the votes. Unless the members of the board band together and either refuse to proceed based on the current pool of candidates or ensure that none will get a majority of the votes, one of the three candidates will get the job.
Regardless, it all comes down to what the board of player representatives does, in meeting that begin in only eight days.
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