When the biggest sports league in America and the biggest sports union in America begin the practice of hiding information from the public \u2014 and from their constituents \u2014 an obvious question arises.<\/p>\n
What else are they hiding?<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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\u2019s about protecting Tretter from the ruling in another grievance. A ruling that had been concealed, like the ruling in the collusion case.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d 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: \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody would say they were fake injuries, but we\u2019ve seen players who didn\u2019t want to be where they currently are, have injuries that made them unable to practice and play, but you\u2019re not able to get fined, and you\u2019re not able to be punished for not reporting. So there are issues like that. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m allowed to ever recommend that<\/a>, 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\u2019s really what all these guys are looking for, is to be compensated fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a wink-nod from the NFLPA\u2019s president to players who want to take a stand without getting in any trouble. Before the term \u201chold in\u201d became associated with a player showing up for training camp and consciously not practicing due to a contract dispute (often with the team\u2019s blessing), some players would \u201chold in\u201d by exaggerating, embellishing, and\/or fabricating injuries when they weren\u2019t happy with their contract situations. Tretter was reminding the running backs, as a practical matter, of that option.<\/p>\n Less than two months later, the NFL filed a grievance<\/a> regarding Tretter\u2019s comments. In September 2024, we reported that a hearing would be happening soon<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cFake injury grievance??\u201d one G.M. said. \u201cRemind me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot familiar with that one,\u201d said an agent who (for multiple reasons) should have known about the grievance.<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n