NFLPA nearing vote on new executive director from three finalists as union faces pivotal moment

The NFL Players Association faces its latest consequential decision in the coming days, and controversy may well accompany the result.

By mid-week next week, the NFLPA will have a new permanent executive director, less than one year after Lloyd Howell resigned in disgrace and just as the NFL looks to renegotiate media deals, add an 18th regular season game, almost double international games, make major changes to the salary cap and, eventually, collaborate on a new collective bargaining agreement.

The union's 32-member board of representatives will gather this weekend in San Diego for a vote among at least three executive director finalists: interim executive director David White, former chief strategy officer JC Tretter and American Conference commissioner Tim Pernetti, according to multiple sources.

The group, selected in private by the union's executive committee, will present to the board during the weekend. The vote will take place by Wednesday, and the players will have their third permanent executive director since 2023 as it looks to climb out of its deepest hole in recent memory.

A union weakened by controversy and instability

The union took some major losses over the past year-plus. The NFL continues to place games throughout the calendar over which the union has no control. The league is expanding into countries that require double-digit travel hours, over which the union has no control. The NFLPA agreed to hide the outcome of the very collusion grievance it brought against the NFL and, in some respects, won. It got wrapped on the knuckles for the popular player report card that it had to privatize. Multiple long-time staffers have been fired, taken buyouts or quit outright, with the union seeing more than 300 years of experience and institutional knowledge walk out the door.

Howell, elected to a five-year term in 2023 after the union lost faith in DeMaurice Smith, stepped down from the post in July amid numerous controversies related to conflicts of interest and misappropriated funds. The union later installed White as the interim, two years after he finished as the runner-up to Howell for the permanent job.

White was the preference of the executive committee in a 10-1 straw poll, but that survey was not shared with the 32-player board that elected Howell. The process was shrouded in a level of secrecy that had not been seen before in the union, though the NFLPA said at the time it was to reflect the same type of process by which a Fortune 500 CEO is selected.

NFLPA president Jalen Reeves-Maybin said last month that while tweaks would be made, the process will mostly stay intact despite the disastrous Howell tenure.

"We've been process-oriented," Reeves-Maybin said. "It's just like playing a football game. You can have a hell of a week at practice and everyone put in the work. And you come out and you lose. Was your process bad? You may have done the process 10 weeks and won 10 straight games. You lose one week and now it's all bad. I don't think that's how we look at it."

The finalists: White, Tretter and Pernetti

White came on board in early August to steady the ship. A Rhodes scholar and graduate of Stanford Law School, White previously served as the national executive director and chief negotiator of the Screen Actors Guild, one of the largest unions in the world.

He spent the season visiting all 32 teams while keeping a low public profile. In his Super Bowl press conference, he reversed his predecessor's acquiescence to an 18th regular season game, but he otherwise has avoided headlines. White said in an interview with CBS Sports that his experience as interim has been "terrific," but stopped shy of campaigning for the gig.

"I agreed to serve as interim because I love the game of football," White said. "I am a union guy. I have already run a high-profile union, and I really care about the players and care about the staff.

"I wanted to get them to a spot as interim for them to do that. I love the work. And if I'm here, I'll be doing the same thing that I'm doing right now, which is making sure that players are at the center of the conversation and that the staff and the PA is focused on the mission of the organization."

Tretter, 35, is the youngest of the candidates. A labor relations major at Cornell, Tretter enjoyed a nine-year career with the Packers and Browns and served as a team representative for two years. In 2020, players elected him as the NFLPA president, where he served for four years until he was ineligible to run again due to his retirement. He joined the NFLPA in a position -- chief strategy officer -- created solely for him with Howell as the executive director.

Tretter helped create the player report card, and sources say he is well-liked by members of the board of representatives. There is no question that the players are most familiar with Tretter out of the finalists. By the end of July, shortly after Howell resigned, Tretter did as well. And in the months since Tretter's departure, sources have described friction between many NFLPA staffers and Tretter.

Tretter explained his decision to leave in a lengthy and controversial interview with CBS Sports. And now that he's a finalist for the top job, he will have to explain his about-face to the membership he left eight months ago.

"Over the last couple days, it has gotten very, very hard for my family. And that's something I can't deal with," Tretter said in July. "So, the short bullet points are: I have no interest in being [executive director]. I have no interest in being considered; I've let the executive committee know that. I'm also going to leave the NFLPA in the coming days because I don't have anything left to give the organization."

Pernetti is the one finalist with no prior experience with the NFLPA. The American Conference commissioner for the past two years, Pernetti held several jobs in and around sports the last two decades. He is best known as the athletics director at Rutgers for four years, where he returned to his alma mater as the youngest AD in the country. He also served as chief business officer of the MLS New York City FC for a couple years.

Though he does not have labor experience, Pernetti has experience running a sports conference during the age of NIL, a sports agency, a college athletics department and, almost two decades ago, serving as EVP of content for CBS Sports Network. (This reporter and Pernetti did not overlap at CBS.)

Pernetti has not commented publicly on his candidacy, but Philip Rogers, chair of the American Conference board, spoke glowingly of Pernetti to Yahoo Sports in a statement.

 "Under Tim's leadership, we have made meaningful forward progress in alignment, commercialization, and competitive strength," Rogers wrote. "Interest in Tim comes as no surprise. He remains a transparent, tireless advocate for our members and fully focused on advancing the American."

These three candidates are distinctly different. White has a long labor history but little football background before last year. Tretter has only played in the NFL and worked at the NFLPA but has no outside experience. Pernetti has plenty of sports experience but none in labor or the NFL.

Though no source contacted for this story could say with confidence who would ultimately win this election, several said they believe it will come down to Tretter and White.

With a majority Black player pool, the NFLPA has had a Black leader for more than four decades. The union has not had a permanent executive director who is white since Ed Garvey led the group from 1971 until 1983. Of these three, only White is the only Black finalist.

A critical moment for the NFLPA's future

The NFL has made no secret of its global domination intentions. Just Wednesday, the league admitted it is likely to have a game on Thanksgiving eve, just after wrestling Christmas Day away from the NBA. The league wants more international games in more international cities. It wants to revamp the salary cap formula in part so owners can lower player costs. And, of course, it wants an 18th regular-season game.

For most of the big money-making opportunities, the NFL needs a union to collectively bargain against. Though the CBA does not expire until March 2031, any new CBA is a years-long process that saw progress stalled by the union's current instability.

The past eight months have seen the NFLPA at its weakest in decades. A league that brings in more than $20 billion a year, and one that will see its Super Bowl championship franchise sell for at least $7 billion, has a player union that has been without its head for nearly a year.

The fate of the union rests on the decision of the 32 board of representatives who have been empowered to elect the next executive director. For the sake of the 2,000 current players and the thousands more of future players, this outcome must be better than the last.

"After this process, will everyone be happy? Maybe not," Reeves-Maybin said in February. "Will everyone feel like they were heard? Maybe not. But for myself and for the executive committee, I know that we put in the work and been thorough and kept integrity to the highest with this process as well as the last process."