NFL, NFLPA concealed another grievance ruling

When the biggest sports league in America and the biggest sports union in America begin the practice of hiding information from the public - and from their constituents - an obvious question arises.

What else are they hiding?

While trying to understand why the NFL Players Association would conceal for more than five months both the partial victory and the compelling evidence harvested in the collusion grievance, someone reached out to PFT with a tip. Said the source, it's not about protecting former union president (and current NFLPA chief strategy officer) JC Tretter from the things he said about former Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson as much as it's about protecting Tretter from the ruling in another grievance. A ruling that had been concealed, like the ruling in the collusion case.

I'd forgotten all about it, frankly. It popped up two years ago this week, when Tretter appeared on The Ross Tucker Football Podcast and said this regarding the consternation from running backs as to their inability to get fairly paid: I don't think anybody would 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. 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."

It was a wink-nod from the NFLPA's president to players who want to take a stand without getting in any trouble. Before the term "hold in" became associated with a player showing up for training camp and consciously not practicing due to a contract dispute (often with the team's blessing), some players would "hold in" by exaggerating, embellishing, and/or fabricating injuries when they weren't happy with their contract situations. Tretter was reminding the running backs, as a practical matter, of that option.

Less than two months later, the NFL filed a grievance regarding Tretter's comments. In September 2024, we reported that a hearing would be happening soon.

After that, there was nothing. No reporting. No leaks. No announcements. No disclosure of the outcome of the grievance to NFL teams (by the league) or to NFL players (by the union). In fact, when I started poking around about the grievance with people who should have known about it, the inquiries were met with confusion.

"Fake injury grievance??" one G.M. said. "Remind me?"

"Not familiar with that one," said an agent who (for multiple reasons) should have known about the grievance.

And so it was time to figure out what happened. Was there a hearing? Was there a ruling? What was the outcome? And why was this one hidden, too?

My partner in transparency and I, Pablo Torre, renewed our joint venture in an effort to get to the bottom of the situation. He heard initially that the case had been settled. I heard initially that the case had been resolved, and that the NFLPA had lost. Pablo commenced the effort to obtain the top-secret ruling, if there was one.

In the interim, the NFLPA provided PFT this statement on Sunday: 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."

Ridiculous and without merit? At first blush, the message from the NFLPA seemed to be that the NFLPA won.

The reality is that the NFLPA lost.

Said the NFL, in a Tuesday statement to PFT: "The Arbitrator upheld the Management Council's grievance in its entirety and found that Mr. Tretter's statements violated the CBA by improperly encouraging players to fake injury. As a result, he prohibited Mr. Tretter and the union from such conduct in the future. The NFL did not allege that any individual player ever feigned injury. We are grateful for the arbitrator's thorough review of the evidence and order enforcing the CBA."

So now we know what happened. And Pablo, true to form, secured the top-secret, strictly-confidential written ruling from Non-Injury Grievance Arbitrator Sidney Moreland.

The outcome of the February 20, 2025 decision was clear. Tretter's comments, per Moreland, violated Article 2, Section 2 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which requires the parties to "use their best efforts to faithfully carry out the terms and conditions of this Agreement and to see that the terms and conditions of this Agreement are carried out in full by players and Clubs. The NFL and NFLPA will use their best efforts to see that the terms and conditions of all NFL Player Contracts are carried out in full by players."

This relates directly to Article 3 of the CBA, which prevents "any strike, work stoppage, or other concerted action interfering with the operations of the NFL or any Club for the duration of this Agreement."

Basically, the union can't tell players to engage in de facto, individualized strikes.

At the conclusion of the ruling, Moreland issued a cease-and-desist order to the NFLPA, preventing it from "violating Article 2 by communicating to its members, directly or indirectly, any suggestions of any conduct that would result in a violation of Article 3 of the [CBA]; and shall henceforth use their best efforts to faithfully carry out in full all the terms and conditions of the [CBA] and all NFL player contracts."

So, yes, the union lost. And, yes, the union hid the ruling.

This time around, the NFLPA not issuing a press release or conducting a press conference is clear. But why would the NFL conceal it? The NFL won. Bigly. The NFL should have trumpeted the ruling or, at a minimum, leaked it to one of its various reporters whose paychecks are literally signed by the Commissioner.

Common sense suggests an obvious link between the NFLPA's discretion as to the collusion ruling and the NFL's discretion as to the fake-injury ruling. The NFLPA doesn't hammer the NFL for getting its hand caught in the collusion cookie jar, and the NFL doesn't hammer the NFLPA for the ruling arising from Tretter's ill-advised comments about faking injuries.

But if that's the trade the parties made, was it a good one for the players? Who within the NFL player ecosystem benefited from it? On one hand, none of them knew that the NFLPA had secured a partial win - and solid evidence - regarding collusion. On the other hand, Tretter (and Tretter alone) was protected from the embarrassment of a story that would have gone from random, niche coverage to wire-service mainstream.

If the players generally cared about their collective interests, they'd be asking very tough questions and demanding very clear answers and insisting on very decisive action. The union, by all appearances, traded the potentially massive leverage they'd secured in the collusion case for a security blanket for JC Tretter.