Former NFLPA Associate General Counsel Sues Union; NFL Filed Grievance Against Union
Heather McPhee, who had been the NFL Players Association’s associate general counsel since 2009, filed suit in December against the union, former executive director Lloyd Howell, NFLPA general counsel Tom DePaso, and NFL Players, Inc. president Matt Curtin, per sports business reporter Daniel Kaplan and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk (NFL Players, Inc. is the union’s licensing and marketing arm). The union had placed McPhee on administrative leave in August for alleged workplace “misconduct,” and she was fired on December 30, less than two weeks after she filed her lawsuit (via ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr.). 
Kaplan subsequently reported that McPhee is seeking damages of $10MM and that the union had sought to seal her complaint. Florio obtained a copy of it and notes that it contains four counts: obstruction of justice; sex discrimination; intentional infliction of emotional distress; and breach of contract.
In a full-length piece for Front Office Sports, Kaplan says McPhee was originally placed on administrative leave after she cooperated with a Department of Justice investigation into the NFLPA’s relationship with OneTeam Partners, which is a venture between major sports unions to collectively sell group licensing rights (the DOJ probe also includes the Major League Baseball Players Association). The NFLPA has four of the OneTeam Partners’ nine board seats, and McPhee’s suit addresses the OneTeam Partners’ Senior Executive Incentive Plan, the goal of which was to compensate board members affiliated with the NFLPA.
Her complaint also addresses the confidentiality agreement between the league and the union regarding the NFLPA’s recent collusion-related grievance. Regular PFR readers will remember that agreement well.
In 2022, the same year the Browns authorized the now-infamous five-year, fully-guaranteed, $230MM contract for quarterback Deshaun Watson, the NFLPA filed a grievance against the league. The grievance alleged that league owners colluded in an effort to make the Watson deal an outlier rather than have it become a precedent for future fully-guaranteed contracts for the NFL’s best players.
In January 2025, the arbitrator who heard the grievance stopped short of ruling that league owners had colluded but did state that teams were urged to restrict guarantees in player contracts. Despite that finding, which Florio classifies as a “partial victory” for the NFLPA, the union and the league agreed to keep the arbitrator’s 61-page decision entirely confidential (it was not disclosed to players either).
The union entered into such an agreement at least in part because of text messages sent by J.C. Tretter to former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, in which Tretter lampooned and belittled Russell Wilson for agreeing to a contract with the Broncos that was not fully-guaranteed. The league used those messages in support of its argument that no collusion took place, and Tretter – who had previously served as the NFLPA’s president and who was working as its chief strategy officer at the time – hoped to prevent them from being made public. Tretter was nonetheless considered a legitimate candidate to succeed Howell as the NFLPA’s executive director, though his role in the collusion matter and a separate grievance involving the league’s running backs – his prior remarks encouraging RBs to feign injury to improve their bargaining power helped the league win that case – triggered his July 2025 resignation.
It was only after veteran reporter Pablo Torre unearthed the arbitrator’s collusion ruling that the league elected to appeal the decision (the appeal is still pending). McPhee alleges that DePaso accused her of leaking the ruling, and that DePaso criticized her for “being emotional” when she questioned the timing of the appeal (via Florio). She goes on to say that the belated nature of the appeal harmed free agents seeking new contracts during the early stages of the 2025 league year, and she argues her placement on administrative leave was retaliatory.
While it is much too soon to speculate on the outcome of McPhee’s suit, it represents another potential black mark for the union, which has sustained a fair amount of them recently. The circumstances surrounding the Tretter and Howell resignations – Howell stepped down amid conflict-of-interest concerns and revelations of a sexual discrimination and retaliation suit that had been filed against him during his time at the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm, to say nothing of his role in the collision matter – do not cast the NFLPA in a positive light. Interim executive director David White and his potential successor will look to reverse that trend.
Meanwhile, Tretter is the subject of another grievance even though he is no longer affiliated with the NFLPA, as Albert Breer of SI.com details. Since 2023, the union has published “report cards” on each of the league’s 32 teams, which are designed to serve as something of an accountability check. After the union began publishing the report cards, the league sent three cease-and-desist letters to Tretter in an effort to make them stop. Those attempts were unsuccessful, and the NFL filed a grievance in August.
The report cards do appear to be having a positive effect for players. As Breer observes, five owners received grades of “D -” or worse in the most recent poll, and two of those owners (the Cardinals’ Michael Bidwill and the Patriots’ Robert Kraft) have invested tens of millions of dollars in new practice facilities. A third such owner, the Steelers’ Art Rooney II, is renovating an existing facility.
J.C. Tretter, Don Davis Are Frontrunners For Interim NFLPA Exec. Director
July 20: Many training camps around the league open on Tuesday, and the NFLPA is expected to vote on an interim executive director by then, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
July 19: The NFLPA is continuing to navigate the fallout of a series of revelations about executive director Lloyd Howell and his subsequent resignation.
The union’s 32 player representatives met on Friday night to discuss the next steps regarding Howell’s now-vacant position. Two current NFLPA leaders emerged as frontrunners, according to The Athletic’s Diana Russini: Chief Strategy Officer J.C. Tretter and Chief Player Officer Don Davis. Also gaining some support among players is retiring NFLPA general counsel Tom DePaso, per Mark Maske of The Washington Post.
Tretter and Davis are both former players, which will help them gain credibility among the union’s active membership. Tretter lined up at center for the Packers and the Browns across eight NFL seasons, while Davis played linebacker for four teams across 11 years and earned two back-to-back Super Bowl rings with the Patriots in 2003 and 2004.
Tretter also has experience leading the union after serving as NFLPA president for two terms. He was elected in March 2020 and helped close out collective bargaining negotiations with the league. One month later, the NFL was facing an uncertain future due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tretter became the co-chair of the NFLPA’s COVID committee and helped the union navigate the 2020 season. It was widely considered a success with a full 256-game schedule and minimal, contained outbreaks. Tretter then won re-election in 2022, but his second term could be a vulnerability due to his involvement with several major issues facing the union. Two of those issues – hiring Howell in 2023 and suppressing two arbitration rulings – were part of Tretter’s effort to ascend to the top of the union’s leadership structure, according to Pablo Torre of Pablo Finds Out.
The 34-year-old currently has a “majority of support,” per Russini, but there is a growing movement among players to move on from Tretter’s leadership along with Howell. Some are even exploring legal action against the NFLPA and Tretter specifically, “citing potential violations around inclusion, labor rights, and misuse of union funds,” according to Russini. A text criticizing Tretter’s leadership circulated between players during last night’s meeting, per Ben Volin of the Boston Globe.
Davis, who has overseen player affairs at the NFLPA for more than a decade, is Tretter’s main competition for the interim executive director role. He is considered the “No. 1 internal candidate,” per CBS Sports Jonathan Jones, and is already receiving support from players, according to both Russini and Maske. (Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. has already expressed his support for Davis on social media.)
After he retired from playing in 2006, Davis joined the Patriots’ strength and conditioning staff and later became the team chaplain. He joined the NFLPA as director of player affairs in 2010, according to his LinkedIn, and was promoted to senior director in 2015 and Chief Player Officer this past April. Davis could also be a candidate for the permanent executive director job, per Jones.
DePaso, the union’s retiring general counsel who briefly played for the Bengals, is another name that has been mentioned by players as a candidate. There is also precedent for the union’s general counsel to serve as interim executive director. The last time the NFLPA needed an interim executive director was 2008, when Gene Upshaw died in office. Then-general counsel Richard Berthelsen served as Upshaw’s interim replacement until DeMaurice Smith was hired, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
Howell was just hired in 2023 and past executive directors have typically served more than a decade, so the union was not prepared to start another search process right away. Finalists in the last process are unlikely to re-emerge, according to Jones, as players will be seeking a leader they can trust. The union will be looking for experience, either within the NFL as a player or with labor management more generally. The NFLPA currently has no timetable for selecting a permanent executive director, per Russini, and whoever is tapped as the interim is not expected to be promoted to the full-time role.
It’s also worth noting that many players are not fully up to date on the multitude of issues now facing the NFLPA. Much of last night’s meeting was about answering questions and clarifying information, according to Russini. Awareness will continue to spread around the league, especially as teams reunite for training camp. The union’s next priority will be selecting an interim leader before kicking off what will likely be a revamped, more thorough search process for a permanent executive director.