The NFL Players Association has a new executive director. On Tuesday, JC Tretter — former center for the Green Bay Packers and Cleveland Browns, former NFLPA president, and holder of a labor relations degree from Cornell — was elected by the union's Board of Player Representatives as its fifth-ever executive director. He beat out interim ED David White and NCAA American Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti in a three-way vote that concluded at the NFLPA's annual meetings in San Diego.
The position has been vacant in a permanent sense since July 2025, when Lloyd Howell Jr. resigned amid a cascade of scandals. Federal investigators had been examining the NFLPA's financial dealings with group-licensing firm OneTeam Partners, which Howell had ties to through prior board service. Separately, podcaster Pablo Torre surfaced the contents of a sealed collusion arbitration ruling that had been kept from players — a document Howell and the union had quietly buried through a confidentiality agreement with the NFL. The revelations hollowed out whatever trust existed between the player body and its leadership.
Tretter's election is not without complication. Eight months ago, he publicly said he had no interest in the executive director job and resigned from his position as chief strategy officer as the Howell crisis unfolded. Criticism of his hiring is already circulating, including concern among some NFLPA staffers who sent an anonymous letter raising questions about his relationships inside the organization. His name also appeared in earlier reporting tied to the sealed arbitration matter, and an arbitration ruling last month found that the NFLPA's annual Team Report Cards — which Tretter championed as union president — violated the CBA by disparaging teams.
Still, Tretter enters with genuine credibility on player issues. He was a central figure in the 2020 collective bargaining agreement, helped the league navigate COVID protocols during that same season, and created the Team Report Cards initiative that gave players a public platform to grade their clubs on working conditions. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell offered a congratulatory statement, which is either a good sign for future CBA negotiations or a flag worth noting, depending on your read of what the NFLPA actually needs right now.
His official start date is April 1. He will inherit a union that has been through a legitimacy crisis and will face near-term pressure on the 18th regular season game question, a push from ownership that rank-and-file players have historically opposed. How Tretter navigates that first fight will tell us a great deal about which version of JC Tretter showed up for work.
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