Following the messy departure of the NFL Players Association’s former executive director, the players’ union leaders have opted for full transparency. Earlier this week NFLPA president Jalen Reeves-Maybin penned a rundown of the events leading from Lloyd Howell‘s exit to the return of J.C. Tretter. 
Reeves-Maybin detailed the association’s diligent search processes, first for a search firm and then for executive director candidates. The Executive Committee and Reeves-Maybin looked at eight search firms, holding calls to determine which offered the most to the process. Four were chosen to move on to virtual interviews, then Reeves-Maybin and the committee chose between a final two, landing on TurnkeyZRG.
TurnkeyZRG then embarked on a search that would not directly involve members of the Executive Committee, instead giving updates to and taking input and direction from a designated Search Committee made up of NFLPA members who were not involved in the executive director search that led to Howell’s election. They designed the search after getting answers to a nine-question interview with player representatives from all 32 teams and cast such a wide net that it included an examination of the post-NFL careers of every player drafted since 1985. The candidate pool was eventually driven down to 300 individuals and whittled down further to 32.
Those 32 candidates’ information was uploaded into a portal through which the Search Committee could view biographies, résumés, speeches, writing samples, podcasts, and interviews. They began to selectively advance and eliminate candidates by majority vote. They chose, first, to focus on external candidates, holding virtual interviews with 12 before six were brought in for in-person meetings. They then brought in two familiar candidates for in-person interviews, advancing one. Reeves-Maybin described the final group as “diverse across race, gender, professional background, and lived experience.”
The final four consisted of two external candidates, interim executive director David White, and TurnkeyZRG’s recommendation, Tretter. Having been cleared of any wrongdoing in relation to Howell or any participation in the NFLPA’s suppression of the arbiter’s collusion finding, Tretter was considered a strong candidate in the eyes of the search firm. After the first day with the final four, no candidate received enough first-place rankings to be elected. After one final day of evaluations that included mock media engagement exercises, Tretter was elected to the position “by a strong majority.”
The NFLPA now intends to move forward, past the drama and mistakes of the past regime. Tretter has wasted no time making his voice heard. In a lengthy interview with Mike Jones of The Athletic, Tretter touched on a number of topics. His journey back after stepping down and his plans for the future were front and center. His first strong stance came against the NFL’s insistence that an 18-game schedule is inevitable.
Vowing to “defend (the league’s) players and their health,” Tretter voiced his opposition, making sure to point out that the NFL can ask the union to come to the table, but the NFLPA is under no obligation to start negotiating until the end of the current collective bargaining agreement is in sight. Until then, he’ll start preparing to ensure he’s ready for that negotiation when it comes.