PTFO Exclusive: We Sparked an NFL Union Crisis. Here's the Sequel.

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Pablo Torre: Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

J.C. Tretter: [Audio clip] I don't think anybody would ever say they were fake injuries, but we've seen players who didn't want to be where they currently are have injuries that made them unable to practice and play. I don't think I'm allowed to ever recommend that, but at least publicly.

Pablo Torre: Right after this ad.

Pablo Torre: We have the documents from last time.

Mike Florio: Okay, that's still in my hand.

Pablo Torre: You still have that thing?

Mike Florio: Oh, I put it under my pillow at night. Like the collusion fairy is coming to visit me.

Pablo Torre: And a lot has happened since, by the way. We released these documents, Mike. A lot has happened in public, even more so in private. But the thing I am most interested in today, what I'm most excited about today, what has blown my mind today, is something that has been kept even quieter. If that is possible, and you're already smiling because we're going to get into something that nobody else has pointed out yet.

Mike Florio: So thank you for coming back to do this again. I enjoy the collaboration very much. I like how we challenge each other and push each other to get new stuff. It's a lot of fun. And as we have learned, there was a lot more meat on the bone than we realized the last time around.

Pablo Torre: Yes, I got to speed run the recap. The first episode we did, it basically involved for those who have been actually asleep, an unprecedented joint cover up of a secret legal document that involves some of the most explosive issues and some of the most famous people in America's most popular sport. A union source had told me, quote, "it's the holy grail for the union." This is 61 pages, gory details, how the league actually works, independent judicial arbitrator, all of that stuff. We published it, and the case was National Football League Players Association v. National Football League. And Mike, I think your cookie jar metaphor is probably the best way to just summarize exactly what happened here because the NFL Management Council was caught doing something but escaped something else. Despite having the cookie crumbs all over their shirt and a mouthful of cookies, they convinced the arbitrator, "we're not eating the cookies that you think we're eating," i.e. these are not the droids you're looking for, and the arbitrator bought it.

Mike Florio: My position would be that there's enough evidence circumstantially, but that is still good evidence of collusion to come to the opposite conclusion. The Dino text message between Michael Bidwell and Dean Spanos, the internal messages sent by Greg Penner, the Broncos owner, to his partner saying, "Oh, the other owners will be happy that we basically held the rope in this game of tug-of-war against the NFL Players Association for fully guaranteed contracts." There's more than enough there to find that the urging that was undeniable from the management council with the blessing of the commissioner became actual collusion among the owners. And that's not over yet either, as we've recently learned.

Pablo Torre: Yes, we got to summarize this because it's still ongoing, it turns out. Quote, "There is little question," the arbiter wrote, "that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans' contracts." And he referenced some of the fun texts we got. It's Lamar Jackson, it's Kyler Murray, it's Russell Wilson, eight different owners, and crucially, Roger Goodell with his general counsel, now former general counsel, Jeff Pasch, in email communications about what to tell the 32 NFL teams at these big annual meetings. And so what we're about to do here today with Mike Florio, recovering lawyer and proprietor of Pro Football Talk, is crack open one of the most explosive questions that we only began to answer, it turns out, in the first episode we did with Mike two weeks ago. Because look, I get why the NFL would want this stuff buried. But why would the leadership of the NFLPA not want anyone else to know the details of what Florio and I just referenced? Why is it that even the players named in this 61-page ruling themselves could only read this stuff because I leaked it? And for that, we've got to turn here for a second to the Cleveland Browns, who signed quarterback Deshaun Watson to that unprecedented, fully guaranteed contract that triggered Goodell's emails and all those private texts that got discovered. But also, crucially, we turn to the Browns' deeply ambitious starting center, J.C. Tretter, the outgoing two-term NFLPA president at the time, whom the Browns cut right as Watson got signed and union leadership at the highest level was also changing. That was the same month which led to this deeply unusual search for a new executive director of the union. A search that J.C. Tretter engineered through nondisclosure agreements, through an amendment to the NFLPA constitution so that the player reps themselves would not know the names of the candidates until they showed up to vote on them. And even more, as previously explained.

J.C. Tretter: [Audio clip] It was in complete and total secrecy. We had no idea who the candidates were. And the stated reason for it was we don't want the media to try to influence our players, assuming the players are even paying attention. We found out about Lloyd Howell after it was over. So, JC, all sounds yours. First off, I want to congratulate Lloyd. You're our next executive director. The energy these last couple days has been fun to watch. I haven't been to a union meeting with this amount of happiness. And it really kind of felt like a locker room feeling after winning a game.

Pablo Torre: So that was June 2023. In July 2023, the U.S. government settled one of the, quote, "largest procurement fraud settlements in history," $377 million, with the big consulting firm Booz Allen, whose CFO during that stretch, as directly described by the whistleblower, happened to be Lloyd Howell, who would proceed to create an executive job at the union that had never existed before, entitled Chief Strategy Officer, which he then gave to J.C. Tretter, setting the stage for the burial of a 61-page ruling. That's exactly where we were. And it feels like there's as much there now as there was when we did it the last time. And shout out, by the way, to Chris Long, former Super Bowl champion, former Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, like the most trustworthy human among the NFL player constituency. He got that award. He invited me onto his excellent show, The Greenlight Podcast, where my question now becomes, if you were a player right now, Chris Long, and you realized that your union president had done that, what would you think? What would you do? What would you say?

Chris Long: [Audio clip] If I found out that a major bargaining chip in us getting what we want is being buried to protect one person, I'd say, get this guy the hell out of here. I got plenty of money. I made my money. But for me, the thing that makes me upset is, and I understand why owners don't want to give guaranteed money. We're like rally cars, bro. We're all going to break. And the product, you don't want to pay guaranteed money for a product that you know is going to break and be sitting on the sideline. I get all that from a business standpoint, but this is what we want. And we're not going to get it, it seems like, ever, because now you've got a smoking gun that says, hey, they did collude. And the Arbiter can't even, the Arbiter's gaslighting us. The NFLPA is kind of looking the other way.

Pablo Torre: And for something strangely personal. The personal part of this he's referring to is J.C. Tretter's texts to Damora Smith, the former executive director of the union, about Russell Wilson, blaming Russell Wilson, calling him a wuss for not fighting for the full guarantees in his contract that, of course, simultaneously revealed in this 61-page document, Mike, the Broncos owners that you referenced before, Mr. Penner was also clearly plotting to not give him for reasons that are entirely in this larger top-down fashion. And so that's also bubbling, is that players, former and current, are beginning to take notice of, wait a minute, who is in charge here today? And not enough of them are speaking out publicly. Beyond Chris Long, J.J. Watt has commented and I think is paying attention.

Mike Florio: But one of the things I've noticed, Pablo, whether it's agents, whether it's players, whether it's anyone who has any relationship to the league or the union. There is such a fear of reprisal. And people have told me now, obviously off the record, but they flat out said, "I'm not getting in the middle of this because I do business with teams. I do business with the union. I rely on the union, for example, to get my fees. If my clients don't pay me, I have to avoid being disciplined by the union. I don't want to piss anybody off." So a lot of people have opted to stay quiet.

Pablo Torre: We got to give credit where credit's due because so many of our colleagues in the media took their heads and buried them in the sand. ESPN's reporting last week from Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler really helped turn up the heat on all of this. The biggest developments in that report, Mike, that pushed this story ahead, do we start with the NDA? I feel like we got to start with just that headline, right? The idea that there was an NDA as it relates to the NFL and the NFLPA coming together, agreeing to keep secret the ruling in the collusion case that was issued January 14, 2025. And they also agreed to press pause indefinitely on the post-ruling litigation.

Mike Florio: But they found the smoking gun evidence of an agreement that never should have happened. And if you're representing the interests of the players, there's no reason to hide this. And once it comes to light, why not explain to the world why you decided to hide it? Why not give us the strategy behind this idea that it's in some way good for the players to hide this?

Pablo Torre: The quote from the ESPN report: "The 61-page arbitration ruling was to be shared only with league and union lawyers and a handful of senior union and league executives while the NFLPA considered its next legal move." End quote. And that next legal move is the next step in our recounting here. And this part is what made me laugh out loud. Nearly six months after arbiter Christopher Droney's decision. But just two weeks, Mike, two weeks after our episode dropped, and only once Don Van Natta started following up about this story, the NFLPA on the evening of July 8th, led by executive director Lloyd Howell Jr., decided to seek an appeal of the ruling, the ruling that had been kept quiet by confidentiality agreement with the NFL, according to a senior union source. Quote, "The appeal is a reflection of our obligation to enforce the CBA and our commitment to protecting our players' interests. We'll do what's best for players and we'll exhaust our options in doing so." End quote.

Mike Florio: Pablo, there are not many things in this world of which I'm certain. I am certain of one. There is no way that that appeal right gets exercised when it does if the secret deal hadn't been blown up, sir, by you finding the 61-page document. They would continue to be indefinitely pausing. And maybe that was the play all along for the union. "We're not going to do anything here until we're forced to do something." And everything you quoted by way of what they said their obligation is, that obligation existed on January 14. Yes. Why did it go into hibernation until they were forced to take action?

Pablo Torre: And so this set the stage for another follow-up report by those ESPN reporters. They nailed down something that I had heard, which is its own remarkable development when it comes to what is not being said here out loud. And it's about Lloyd Howell Jr. and his other jobs. Because getting paid $3.4 million to run the most important union in sports in America, you could argue.

Mike Florio: It's a tough economy to make it on $3.4 million, Pablo. You should know that.

Pablo Torre: I mean, look. There before the grace of God go I, right? If only. If only. Listen. What Lloyd Howell was now conclusively reported to be doing, Mike, and how he was doing it, it's again, it feels like it's pulled out of a script that would be tossed out because it's too on the nose when it comes to what people suspect Lloyd Howell is doing. I have a hard time explaining to anyone what happened without laughing. The idea that the person who is ultimately in charge of the most significant sports union in America has a part-time consulting job, I can't do it now, with a private equity firm that is on this short list of private equity firms that have been pre-approved by the mortal enemy of the National Football League Players Association to purchase minority interests, lucrative and valuable minority interests in NFL franchises. And nobody seems to care.

Mike Florio: Well, an unnamed union lawyer cares, but nobody else connected to the NFL Players Association seems to care about one of the most laughable and cartoonish, that's the word. It is a cartoonish conflict of interest that the union doesn't care about. Essentially, Lloyd Howell has a side gig as an operational executive with the Carlyle Group, a company that is, yes, on the short list of pre-approved private equity firms that are actively trying to and have now been granted permission by the NFL to be in business with the NFL.

Pablo Torre: But for now, you just need to know that the NFLPA on Sunday did release a statement responding to all of this and more, Mike.

NFLPA Statement: [Read by Pablo] "As members of the NFLPA Executive Committee, we categorically reject false reports, insinuating doubts within the committee or suggestions that we asked our executive director to step down. We further reject attempts to mischaracterize the committee's views or divide our membership. We have established a deliberate process to carefully assess the issues that have been raised and will not engage in a rush to judgment. We believe in and remain committed to working with our executive director and other members of NFLPA staff and player leadership who have a shared mission to advance the best interests of players. As we approach the 2025 season, we look forward to continuing our important work together and ensuring the strength and unity of our association."

Pablo Torre: The NFLPA is suffering behind the scenes a crisis of confidence. And the question is how big the crisis? Because something else that ESPN reported here, sources told them that the union last month hired an outside law firm, Wilmer Hale, to work with a special committee of players to review Lloyd Howell's activities as the executive director. It was formed in response to something we barely even talk about in these episodes, which is an FBI investigation into the union as a result of this other thing happening that is connected to one-team partners. Mike, I'm not even going to stop here to explain that one. Just know that that's also happening. And then when we drop the 61-pager, and then the Carlyle Group stuff, which we have all now outlined in sequence in chronological order, three big topics. And I just got to observe here, Mike, pretty fucking crazy for one regime to have all three things happening at the same time.

Mike Florio: Absolutely. And you mentioned that statement. What are the false reports they're talking about? You know, we see this in our political life now. You get ahead of a bad story by attacking the media. And it's sad, it's convenient, and it's not uncommon these days that those who are trying to get to the truth are the ones who become the villains when those who are trying to hide whatever it is they may or may not have done wrong decide we're going to turn the tables and we're going to go on the offensive.

Pablo Torre: But the other thing we should acknowledge here, Mike, is that we are becoming also the characters in the play that we're describing. Because what I'm also told separately is that this regime ain't a big fan of you or me, and particularly you, and what you got at your little Pro Football Talk operation.

Mike Florio: Mike, didn't you hear that I want to be the executive director? Didn't you hear that? Tough economy, man. Or that I'm the puppet master who wants to install an executive director for my own purposes. I mean, it worked the last time, apparently, to have someone pulling the strings and engineering the process. So look, I care about the players and I've been very candid about this at PFT. And I heard the same thing you did. Basically, Thursday night, the momentum was moving toward Lloyd Howell being out. And someone or more than one person leveraged things I wrote and things I said into getting enough of the executive committee to circle the wagons. And it's "us against them" and "don't let them on the outside interfere with us."

Pablo Torre: It's part of the justification J.C. Tretter gave two years ago. Correct. For the secret Lloyd Howell hiring process. "We don't want these voices on the outside meddling." The confidentiality agreements he made everybody sign at that point because of media interference. Correct. No transparency at all. "We don't want people on the outside poking around. So we can do whatever we want to do behind the curtain and nobody knows what's happening." And God forbid if anyone does.

Mike Florio: And look, I was very candid. Once I found out that Lloyd Howell is working on the side for the Carlyle Group, which is in bed with the arch enemy of the NFL Players Association, I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" And then that was used to pull everyone together and we're the assholes who are trying to disrupt unity and solidarity within the NFLPA. Meanwhile, I refer you to every other thing we've reported that, by the way, for the record here, has not been challenged at all. I have heard 0.0 repeating things when it comes to factual correction, pushback, questioning from the NFLPA or the NFL. Since we started reporting this, zero things. So I'm merely saying that all we can do is give you the truth as we have exhaustively, sleeplessly reported it, and you be the judge.

Pablo Torre: Which brings us, Mike Florio, to the thing that has not become a thing in public quite yet, the thing I am most excited to discuss today with you, because as it turns out poetically, and of course it does, there was another, another arbitration ruling that nobody has seen before. An arbitration ruling that is even more secret than the one that I published two weeks ago, the 61-pager. And I think, I think both of us think, it is a significant missing piece in understanding this entire story.

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Pablo Torre: My deep, deep, deep, deep, deep off-the-record sources for the previous arbitration ruling had no idea about this one. And full transparency for the audience, when you and I were talking previously the last time, this never came up. I talked to people in front offices, at law firms, at the union itself. Nobody knew shit about this thing.

Mike Florio: I had completely forgotten about this, and I actually covered it at profootballtalk.com. At the time, when the comments in question were made in a public forum, what the blowback was, what the skirmish was, and what the procedural status was, we have five, six, seven stories about it. Completely had forgotten about it because I didn't see a connection between that and the 61-page ruling we spent so much time talking about last time.

Pablo Torre: You really have forgotten more than anyone else covering this area of interest will ever know. But this was July 2023, and it was a podcast appearance by a very relevant character in this story.

Ross Tucker: [Audio clip] But it's not just any Ross Tucker football podcast. It's actually a Tuckhead Tuesday. We're recording a day early. You know why? Because I wanted to talk to J.C. Tretter about what's going on with the running backs. And today was the day to do it. So why not post it early for you guys? We are presented by DraftKings. If you're not familiar, J.C. Tretter is the president of the NFLPA. A lot going on right now with all the running back talk. Let's just get right to it. It's Big Show time.

Pablo Torre: So again, this is July 2023. This is the month after Lloyd Howell was elected executive director. And the reason you wrote about it, Mike, is fascinating, actually, just in a vacuum. Because the subject at the core of this podcast is players, specifically running backs, faking injuries. And so into the fray, without really much prodding, it sounds like, is NFLPA President J.C. Tretter to explain.

J.C. Tretter: [Audio clip] I think we've seen issues now. I don't think anybody would ever say they were fake injuries, but we've seen players who didn't want to be where they currently are, have injuries that made them unable to practice and play. But you're not able to get fined and you're not able to be punished for not reporting. So there are issues like that.

Pablo Torre: This wasn't a new concept. Over the past five or six years in the NFL, the term "holdout" has been supplemented with the term "hold in." And it now loosely refers to the idea that a player, instead of staying away from the team, will be in the building, will attend meetings, will be around, but just won't practice until his contract situation is resolved because he's putting himself at physical risk, let's say in November of a contract year, hasn't gotten his new deal yet. "I have a hamstring injury. Whether I have one or not, I may have a concussion, whether I have one or not." And that player pulls himself out of the lineup citing an exaggerated, embellished, or fabricated injury because he doesn't want to go out and assume any further physical risk because he doesn't have long-term security.

J.C. Tretter: [Audio clip] I don't think I'm allowed to ever recommend that, at least publicly. But I think each player needs to find a way to build up leverage to try to get a fair deal. And that's really what all these guys are looking for, is to be compensated fairly.

Pablo Torre: J.C. Tretter smilingly does a thing that all podcasters love, which is to dance across the line, then dance back. Because what you said at the time was, quote, "Tretter's advice sweeps far more broadly and recklessly. Despite the accuracy of his remarks, it's not something he should have said. His words could be used against him, against the union, or against specific players if slash when a grievance or some other proceeding ever arises on the question of players faking injuries." End quote.

Pablo Torre: Which brings us now to the date of September 11th, 2023, because the Associated Press, Mike, reported something very interesting. That was when a grievance was filed, not in relation to any specific player who may have been faking injuries, but a grievance directly aimed at the comments of J.C. Tretter for essentially encouraging players to engage in a work stoppage, one at a time. "If you're not happy, hey, I can't say it publicly, but maybe I'll say it privately, fake an injury, you can't be fined, you can't be punished, and your interests are protected that way." So that was the grievance that the NFL directed at the NFLPA as a direct result of what J.C. Tretter had to say on that podcast.

Mike Florio: Typically what happens when the NFL files a grievance like this, the NFL wants you to know about it. And so not a shock that the AP would have this report, that the NFL was doing this thing that, you know, didn't look great for, once again, the president of the union and future chief strategy officer as Lloyd Howell would appoint him. Because even though this was basically like de facto common knowledge, this was something that actually might result in a meaningful consequence.

Pablo Torre: And you make a great point. Something like that had to be handed to the AP. The NFL Players Association sure as hell isn't going to do it. It was the NFL getting it out there right around the start of the season, September 11, right around the time that football is back. The NFL wanting everyone to know, "Hey, we have called BS on what J.C. Tretter had to say." And in a roundabout way, it may have been a message to the running backs who weren't any happier when the 2023 season got started.

Saquon Barkley: [Audio clip] Good for Saquon. The guy has a right to want to make as much money and have as much security for the job he's done. This is my leverage. My leverage is I can say to the Giants, I can say to my teammates and be like, "You want me to show you my worth? You want me to show you how valuable I am to the team? I won't show up. I won't play it down." And that's a play I can use. Anybody knows me, knows that's not something I want to do. But has it something that crossed my mind? I never thought I would ever do that, but now I'm at a point where it's like, Jesus, like, I might have to take it to this level.

Pablo Torre: Don't start playing these games now that we're in season and you might be injured. We're watching by virtue of the fact that we filed this grievance. And now we place it back in the timeline of the collusion ruling, right?

Pablo Torre: So the NFLPA v. NFL collusion arbitration hearing happened over July and August of 2024, behind closed doors, that had just concluded. That brought them to the month of September 2024. Huh, that's convenient. It's convenient that after a whole set of hearings in which J.C. Tretter himself is one of the people who testified, there would be this related parallel movement. National Football League Management Council versus National Football League Players Association, which is just to say that as they were still figuring out what's going to be the outcome of this fateful suppressed ruling that was at the core of episode one, this also was happening.

Pablo Torre: And so in public, when it comes to a total own goal by the NFLPA president, who had then become the chief strategy officer of the NFLPA, who also had a private goal of becoming the eventual executive director and also a separate parallel interest in his own behavior, his own conduct, his texts about Russell Wilson and beyond not becoming public in the collusion grievance. I suppose it's notable that nobody ever heard anything, Mike, about this thing in which he was in the dunk tank personally ever again. It just disappeared. No more article writing, no more sources leaking anything. It was done. And so all logic would indicate that it disappeared because the NFL must have lost.

Pablo Torre: Mike, the NFL must have lost because can you imagine, this is an honest question, can you imagine a world by the powers of logic where the NFL, given the collusion timeline in parallel to this, wins a grievance against not just the NFLPA, but the president of the NFLPA, the president who had stepped in it in this way. Can you imagine a world where the NFL wins a grievance and nobody hears about it, given that all of this stuff indicates that the NFL would love to celebrate this? Could you imagine that happening? No. As you established very astutely, not that long ago, the NFL was sure to leak to the Associated Press the filing of the grievance. Clearly, this grievance must have been ridiculous and without merit, Mike, as I believe the NFLPA said to you when you finally asked them about it this week.

Pablo Torre: This was all on the record from the NFLPA when I inquired about the disposition of the J.C. Tretter fake injury grievance. Statement from the NFLPA: "As we said at the time, this grievance was ridiculous and without merit. The arbitrator since found no evidence that players faked injuries and the NFLPA does not encourage our members to do so." End of statement. I mean, that sounds like a win, doesn't it? What am I missing? That sounds like we won.

Pablo Torre: The problem with that statement is the truth. As it turns out, what we can now report is that on February 20th, 2025, according to this ruling, which I now have in my hand, which PTFO has exclusively obtained, the NFL won this grievance. They won the grievance. The NFL won this. This thing was heard at 200 Park Avenue, New York, New York, Wednesday, September 18th, 2024, at 9:30 a.m. Before a different arbitrator. This one is Sidney Moreland. And quote, "The grievance is sustained."

Pablo Torre: And when I read this, the reason why the union lost, one big reason, according to the arbitrator, was the fact that J.C. Tretter was, in fact, J.C. Tretter, president of the union, when he podcasted about all of this shit. He was the president of the union and he was wink, nod, encouraging players to stage their own individualized wildcat strikes, period. And don't do that. You can't do that. Why in the world did you think that was something you could say or should say? You shall not do that. You don't need whatever number of pages it took to get to that bottom line. It's a lot of words to say that on February 20th, 2025, the NFLPA lost. Lost.

Pablo Torre: And back to trying to understand the "why" as it relates to the NFLPA, not using its partial victory in the collusion grievance as a hammer, not using the evidence, the "Dino, hey Dino" text messages where Michael Bidwill and Dean Spanos were comparing notes about fully guaranteed contracts and how it's going to help the Chargers with their quarterback who was due for a new deal a year later. Why would you hide all of that? You hid it all because of whether it was planned or whether it was spontaneous. This quid pro quo: "Let's not beat the shit out of each other publicly. Let's not make each other look bad. Let's hold our tongues and trade off. Let's trade off."

Pablo Torre: Something that would have been potentially to the tremendous benefit of the players as relates to the collusion grievance for something that at the end of the day worked to the benefit of one person and one person only. The ego, the vanity, the aspirations from a career standpoint of J.C. Tretter. And when it comes to J.C. Tretter, who again, I believe is the most underrated character in all of this, even as we lay out everything, J.C. Tretter knows the power of this. And incidentally, I know he knows the power of leverage in public because the only person you need to ask is in fact J.C. Tretter in this same interview with Ross Tucker.

Pablo Torre: When I tell you this is literally seconds before the same clip that lost him this arbitration ruling, I am not exaggerating. "You need to try to create as much leverage as you possibly can in any situation. And that's the tough thing with the franchise tag or being restricted in movement as it decreases your leverage, but then you have to find creative ways to build leverage elsewhere." Creative ways to build leverage elsewhere is the literal sentence before the sentence that's quoted in the ruling, Mike.

Pablo Torre: And look, man, it's just hard for me to not think about this in the way that I think the NFL thinks about it, which is biggest picture available, right? They want an 18th game. They want to figure out how do we get the leverage that J.C. Tretter is talking about? How do we create that? It seems like they really enjoy having the regime of Lloyd Howell and J.C. Tretter around to negotiate with before the actual negotiation that they really do care about.

Mike Florio: I think you're right. Don't make waves. Don't create issues. Don't put anything out there that would potentially remove from the equation one of the people who may help you get to where you're trying to be. We don't want to upset the NFLPA apple cart. I used to joke about Lloyd Howell being a Manchurian candidate back when he was hired. I mean, the private equity stuff, once that came out, I said, maybe it's not a joke. So you got somebody who potentially is going to give you everything you want. When the issue of 18 games first came up last year, "Who doesn't want more football?" That was a quote from Lloyd Howell. It helps the NFL in multiple ways, and it is diabolical. It is genius. We avoid embarrassment for our attempted collusion, and we avoid embarrassing someone who is our preferred partner in negotiation.

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Pablo Torre: All of this is the same, Mike, that I'm also going to report here that the players in the union, I mean, they had no idea. Of course they didn't. They didn't know about collusion. This other side podcast ruling, like this wasn't a priority. It wasn't a thing. In fact, even though the decision was February 20th, I am told that it was not part of the annual report in March that is given to the 32-player reps. It was not in writing anywhere. It was not given to the 32-player reps, by the way, who actually hold the power in the union to affect change by the power of their vote. They didn't see this in writing, which is to say, at the top of this part here, neither the collusion ruling nor the podcast fake injury running back ruling with J.C. Tretter were put into writing for the March annual report in 2025.

Pablo Torre: And I hadn't thought of this until just now because we haven't had much time to fully digest this short, but still longer than it needed to be ruling in the fake injury J.C. Tretter podcast grievance. Wouldn't it be imperative for the union? And shouldn't the arbitrator have demanded as part of the final order, that the union send a clear and unmistakable message. The final disposition was cease and desist, stop doing it. But how about also, you shall put the toothpaste back in the tube. You need to tell your players, do not do this. You can't do this. Don't get any ideas.

Pablo Torre: And to a certain extent, there may have been some players who were exposed and are still exposed to maybe thinking, hey, I can get some mileage out of faking an injury. I don't know that this thing resulted in a grievance. I don't know that the NFL won. I don't know that anyone's paying attention to it. I'm going by what I heard J.C. Tretter say two years ago. So I think that, number one, the final ruling should have told the NFL, mandated that the NFLPA tell its players, "Pay no attention to what J.C. Tretter said in 2023. It was stupid and ill-advised and improper." And two, make sure the players know.

Mike Florio: Even without language in there putting an affirmative duty on the NFLPA to tell the players, they should have wanted to tell the players, "Hey, players, by the way, we said some dumb shit in 2023 and it created a big mess and we lost. And here's the takeaway. That thing that I kind of joked about doing, don't ever do it. Don't ever do it." That should have been communicated at a minimum to the players.

Pablo Torre: And so now I want to reintroduce the concept of the executive committee, because the question of who's in charge at the union, who's calling the shots here, we know J.C. Tretter and Lloyd Howell. And what the union will tell you is that we hired a search firm named Russell Reynolds. And Russell Reynolds, look, they're the ones who vetted everybody. This Booz Allen thing, the largest fraud settlement anybody can remember in American history, $377 million, the CFO. Russell Reynolds is the one who vetted that, right? It was them. A bit of, again, just arms length, ostensible arms length distance between the union and JC particularly and Lloyd.

Pablo Torre: Which brings us to today, right? This other institution, this other group that is figuring out, okay, how do we vet Lloyd Howell again? And Mike, this special committee of players, which we referred to at the top of the show, that has hired Wilmer Hale as their outside counsel here, because again, it started because of the One Team stuff and the FBI investigation at that point before the collusion 61-pager was released by us. But the very premise of "we are going to get an outside counsel to evaluate our most powerful person, ostensibly, Lloyd Howell." I mean, the question I have is like, how legit is this?

Mike Florio: I've conducted independent investigations and they're never truly independent because what happens is when the lawyer gets his or her marching orders, his or her assignment, if you're smart, which I'm not, but I was still able to pick up on it most of the time, you can pick up where the person hiring you would like this to go if it can. That is not to say you make up evidence, you ignore evidence, you fabricate evidence to get to where the client seems to want to go. But usually what happens is it's a bunch of gray. And there's a lot of discretion in that gray. Who hired the lawyer and what were the marching orders provided? And we'll find out by the outcome of the investigation, because usually it leads right back to what the lawyer was asked to do.

Pablo Torre: So here is one clue, one important sign as we try and forecast the legitimacy of the second vetting of Lloyd Howell. Because according to multiple union sources I've spoken to, this special committee of players, the guys who are assigned this case, essentially, notably not present on it is the president of the NFLPA, Jalen Reeves-Maybin. And Mike, Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Detroit Lions linebacker, special teamer, a guy I can also further report that J.C. Tretter personally campaigned for as his replacement, his successor in that job over other candidates, by the way, that other people noticed.

Pablo Torre: And this question then of like, so who is in charge here and what are they doing? It's so salient to question in the history of the NFLPA, Mike, as you know, that this past Super Bowl, at the big annual press conference the NFLPA holds, Jalen Reeves-Maybin walked up to the podium and directly referenced it.

Jalen Reeves-Maybin: [Audio clip] This is about 11 months since I became the president of the NFLPA. And, you know, I'm very grateful for the chance to represent our membership. I don't take this role lightly and I'm not here to really push a personal agenda or anything. I just think that's important to have someone who's willing to speak up for the players, willing to take direction from the players and really try to put the players in the front of this whole ride. I think a lot of times things get misconstrued with who's controlling the players or who's running the union. And we really try to reinforce that. This is player-led, player-driven, player-centric with everything that we do.

Pablo Torre: Jalen Reeves-Maybin not being invited into that committee to evaluate Lloyd Howell seems meaningful. And this is one of the breadcrumbs toward getting to the heart of where this independent investigation is going to go. Is this a rogue special committee that is going to ignore what J.C. Tretter and or Lloyd Howell would want? Or are they going to lead the lawyer down the path toward full exoneration of Lloyd Howell? The absence of Jalen Reeves-Maybin from that special committee could be a very strong clue that maybe this group is kind of a breakaway faction saying, "Hey, we've seen enough."

Mike Florio: And this all started because of the One Team stuff. And some of the reporting that's out there from ESPN, from Daniel Kaplan with Awful Announcing, it's alarming. And, you know, there's a whistleblower who's trying to send up the alarms about whatever went on between Lloyd Howell and One Team Partners. And that may have been enough to get a subgroup of the executive committee to say, "Hey, what are we doing here?"

Pablo Torre: But the group that I want to get to that's connected to all of this, of course, is the Carlyle Group. Lloyd Howell, per ESPN's reporting and my further confirmation, was told by a union lawyer, "This is not a good idea for you to have this side gig with this private equity firm." We should note something, that as Lloyd Howell is saying behind the scenes, and the position is behind the scenes, "I only deal with the aerospace and defense part of the Carlyle Group, not the NFL and sports side that has anything to do with NFL owners," right? That's the threading of his needle. "I'm the aerospace defense guy, not the private equity talking NFL owners guy."

Pablo Torre: Maybe the right person to hear from at this moment happens to be Lloyd Howell himself. And this video, the NFLPA actually posted themselves on their official Twitter account that again, pretty much nobody noticed or cared about at the time.

Lloyd Howell: [Audio clip] In my first year in the role, as I was making the rounds, talking to owners and would mention private equity, I got a polite, "Hell no." Like, "Not my team, made sacrifices," the list went on and on as to why they were not in favor. And then less than a year, they voted on for teams who elect to participate up to 10%, non-voting, non-controlling, essentially a limited partnership. So what changed? To grow, you need capital, right? And so to the extent that you can get capital and not give up control, that's a pretty good deal. And then you get into the specifics that I just don't know. What's the lockup? Who can participate? Is there a clearinghouse? All things that I think in my discussions with the league, they're still working through.

Lloyd Howell: [Audio clip] Today's professional football player, athlete, thinks about their sport, their job differently than in the past.

Pablo Torre: So I'm like, there are two things there. And I want to start with the first thing, which is that that is, in fact, sound of Lloyd Howell just saying, "Yeah, when I talk to NFL owners about private equity and whether they would accept private equity, they say hell no to me, Lloyd Howell." And I'm like, is this not the literal problem that he is in fact talking about the thing he's saying? "I'm just the aerospace guy." Yeah, they say hell no, but now they say hell yes. How did they get to the point where they said hell yes?

Mike Florio: What if I told you that the head of the union has a vested interest in his private equity group that pays him, we don't know how much money, to be a consultant to try to get his employer on the side positioned to purchase lucrative stakes in NFL teams. And I long for the good old days when people actually gave a shit about conflicts of interest, when it actually was viewed as a negative, not just, "Oh, well, do whatever you want."

Pablo Torre: So, Mike, as we look and review the video that we played for you posted on Twitter by the NFLPA, and I presume the audience, the main audience for such a video, is of course like NFL players, their constituency, as well as the media, but the players themselves, you know, that's who they care about. I should point out the second thing that made me laugh about that video. And I've become, you know, pretty hyper aware of just editing these days. And there was, if you're not watching on our YouTube channel, a very funny, subtle, but noticeable jump cut in that video. Something was missing. Something seemed edited, at least.

Pablo Torre: So, you may recall that video of Jalen Reeves-Maybin that I showed you before. I should disclose that that video was not posted by the NFLPA. That video was posted at that off angle by the South Florida Tribune's YouTube channel, which happened to post the full 50-minute press conference from the room off a cell phone at the time. Mike, there are fewer views on that video than there are members of the special committee to review Lloyd Howell. I was view number four when I found this.

Pablo Torre: And it turns out, you can kind of see that when the NFLPA posted the social media version of this, what they wanted you and the players to see, after the phrase, "in my discussions with the league, they're still working through." That's the phrase. They cut out Lloyd saying this part: "All things that I think in my discussions with the league, they're still working through." So they have some very reputable firms in the mix, which is encouraging. But it still gets to "today's professional football player, athlete, thinks about their sport, their job, differently than in the past."

Pablo Torre: "Some very reputable firms are in the mix," Mike. Lloyd Howell's shouting out some very reputable firms that are in the mix. What firms could those be? I'm surprised you didn't see, including the Carlyle Group, which I have no relationship with whatsoever. Mike, on that note, I want to continue to resume the original Twitter video here that the NFLPA posted.

Lloyd Howell: [Audio clip] You know, wealth creation. They're thinking about legacy. They're thinking about their families. They're thinking about, you know, what entrepreneurial platforms can I get into? We actually have players who...

Pablo Torre: You see that one? Yes. Did you see that cut? You saw that cut? So right where Lloyd says, quote, "what entrepreneurial platforms that I can get into," I decided again to go back to the South Florida Tribune, that beacon of journalism, to see what got cut.

Lloyd Howell: [Audio clip from South Florida Tribune] You know, what entrepreneurial platforms can I get into? And so life after football is not as important, but is as important as what they're doing at a very young age. So there's questions that certainly I have. I am an operating executive at Carlyle Group. I do understand enough to be dangerous when it comes to private equity. It is intriguing, but it is intriguing that today's professional football player has more of an equity mindset. They want to put their money to work, right? And so in order to do that, here is a platform. Why can't they participate? And it could be for conflict of interest reasons. It could be all sorts of reasons. But in my experience, you can work through that, right? You can set up the right safeguards.

Pablo Torre: Oh, apparently you can. He says, "I am an operating executive at the Carlyle Group." He talks about how conflict of interest might be a problem. He talks about how you can work through that, though, with some safeguards. It's the thing he's being vetted for now. It's literally that. He is saying it at the Super Bowl, and they cut it out. I don't know how you defend that. Making conscious, apparently, deliberate, apparently, strategic, apparently, edits to Lloyd Howell's comments.

Mike Florio: And I had no idea you were going down this path. This is good. This is not a contrived, shocked face when you tell me you're going to be playing this video. I really am shocked. As he is saying this, it's just worth noticing that the players on stage with them, Austin Ekeler, Case Keenum, Jalen Reeves-Maybin, nothing. Just like no recognition. If they're listening closely, no recognition, right? Just like not a thing that they were betraying any feeling about or even awareness of or reaction to. That got said, and everything proceeded till today, months later, when we bring it up for the first time.

Mike Florio: But it just underscores this idea that there's what I thought was a blind spot, but given that there was selective editing of that video, it may not have been such a blind spot after all with whatever Lloyd Howell's true motivations may be. And is he a Manchurian candidate? I don't know. But at this point, I think the onus is on him to prove that he isn't.

Pablo Torre: What I am told is that when it comes to that union lawyer who confronted Lloyd Howell about the Carlyle Group, the lawyer did it right after that press conference happened. That was the precipitating event. That lawyer heard that as NFLPA lawyer and confronted Lloyd Howell.

Mike Florio: Wow.

Pablo Torre: And I am told that Lloyd Howell canceled meetings that they're supposed to have about this. I'm told that he refused to engage. I'm told that other lawyers at the NFLPA were informed about this, that this lawyer was trying to draw attention to what he had just said at the fucking Super Bowl, and nothing.

Mike Florio: It's sad that it's gotten to that point, and it's no longer about Pablo. And look, the people who are pulling the strings at the NFLPA, if they want to say nasty things about me, I really don't care. It feels like it's no longer about the best interests of the players. It's about preserving the power and the income of the two people who are, by all appearances, running the show.

Mike Florio: I'll make one last point. And I'm not trying to make anyone do a perp walk. I'm just saying at some point, at some point, an ambitious prosecutor has to be thinking, "There's a lot of smoke here. I'm going to go try to find the fire."

Pablo Torre: Mike, as both of us now look behind us as we walk down the street, it's been good to inhale a truly insane amount of smoke with you.

Mike Florio: Well, one of these days we can get together and inhale a very different kind of smoke. I don't know if it's going to be a better high than this.

Pablo Torre: This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

Mike Florio: We'll see you next time.

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