Remember when we found out the NFL had a 61‑page arbitration ruling buried deeper than a Belichick scouting report? The one that openly admitted league brass encouraged owners to slam the brakes on fully guaranteed contracts after Deshaun Watson’s $230 million shockwave. Pablo Torre and Mike Florio cracked that vault in late June, and the initial reaction from players was equal parts "What the heck?" and "Wait, why are we just hearing about this now?"

Turns out that leak was only Act I. What followed over the next four weeks felt like one of those training‑camp fight reels on social media — except instead of linemen throwing punches, it was union leadership getting pummeled by receipts, strip‑club tabs, and conflict‑of‑interest land mines. By the time the smoke cleared, the NFL Players Association had lost its executive director, its most recent president, and a massive chunk of credibility.

If you blinked, you probably missed half the twists. So let’s rewind and figure out what this mess means for the league, the players, and the next round of labor wars.

Quick Refresher

It all started in March 2022 when Cleveland gives Deshaun Watson a fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million deal, sending shockwaves through the league. Two days later, NFL general counsel Jeff Pash emails Roger Goodell, outlining a private PowerPoint deck planned for the upcoming owners’ meeting. A subtle (but pointed) playbook on how to avoid letting Watson’s deal become the new standard.

By that summer, Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill is texting Chargers owner Dean Spanos about how Kyler Murray’s extension — which included some guaranteed money, but far less than Watson’s — “helps” keep things from spiraling. Broncos co-owner Greg Penner chimes in that Russell Wilson’s new deal will also keep the pack in line. You didn’t need to be in the group chat to know they were all rowing the same direction.

Fast forward to January 2025. Arbitrator Christopher Droney reviews the grievance filed by the NFLPA, alleging that the owners colluded to block fully guaranteed deals. Droney says the evidence isn’t airtight — but admits the NFL league office pretty much handed owners a manual for doing exactly that. Still, he rules in the league’s favor.

The kicker of it all is that the NFLPA signed a confidentiality clause and buried the decision. No email blast. No media alert. Not even a heads-up to the players whose contracts were affected—like Lamar Jackson, who was negotiating his own deal at the time.

Then came the leak. On June 27, 2025, Pablo Torre and Mike Florio published the full arbitration ruling, unredacted. It took a little longer than I expected to catch fire, but eventually, the flames wound up raging across the PA.

Timeline of a Meltdown

• June 27: Leak hit the airwaves

  • Players find out the union kept them in the dark about proven league interference in contract trends. It shakes trust to its core.

• July 1: NFLPA files a very late appeal

  • The appeal comes 140 days after the deadline, raising even more questions about competence and transparency.

• July 5: ESPN reveals Lloyd Howell’s Carlyle Group side gig

  • The executive director was simultaneously working with an NFL‑tied firm, raising serious integrity and conflict‑of‑interest concerns.

• July 7: FBI looking into OneTeam Partners

  • Investigations into the union’s for-profit licensing arm could derail marketing revenue and public confidence.

• July 11: Strip‑club receipts leak

  • Union funds being used at adult venues damage public image and give critics new ammunition.

• July 17: Howell resigns

  • The union loses its top executive just as pressure mounts—symbolizing how fractured things had become internally.

• July 20: JC Tretter steps down

  • The former president’s exit creates a leadership vacuum and validates growing internal player frustration.

• July 23: Don Davis named interim ED

  • A stabilizing move, but one that signals the union is in damage control and scrambling to keep order.

• July 25: NFL bills union $12 million in legal fees

  • The league rubs salt in the wound, demanding repayment for the case the union fumbled in silence.

The Lloyd Howell Fiasco — When the Wheels Fell Off

Double‑Dipping With Carlyle

Lloyd Howell looked like a breath of fresh air when he was appointed in 2023 — someone with Ivy League credentials and a reputation for strategic thinking. But beneath the surface, he was still deeply tied to his old world: spreadsheets, finance reports, and private equity.

Specifically, Howell had a side gig consulting for Carlyle Group, a massive investment firm that had financial relationships with NFL team owners. While earning $3.4 million a year from the union, he also cashed checks from Carlyle — an obvious conflict of interest. Union counsel advised him to cut ties. He didn’t.

When players caught wind of it, it felt like betrayal. Howell was supposed to be their advocate, not someone rubbing shoulders with the same private capital giants trying to cut player shares. Players just couldn’t overlook that kind of contradiction.

VIP Receipts & Labor‑Law Red Flags

If the Carlyle thing cracked Howell’s credibility, the strip‑club receipts just shattered it.

In February 2025, during the union’s annual meeting in Atlanta, someone charged $2,426 to the NFLPA card at Magic City — a well-known adult venue — under the label “Player Engagement.” A few months earlier, in November 2023, another $739 was spent on a late-night limo to Tootsie’s Cabaret in Miami. And this wasn’t some one-off lapse in judgment — Howell had already been reprimanded for a similar incident back in 2015 when he was at Booz Allen.

JC Tretter & the Sudden Power Vacuum

JC Tretter used to be the nerdy center who helped the league navigate COVID protocols — a guy who once had the full trust of the locker room and the respect of team doctors. But his last act as union president raised eyebrows: he led the search for a new executive director, then slid into a cushy $650K "Chief Strategy Officer" position that was created just for him and had no real purpose other than to still be around.

The timing of the leaked ruling couldn’t have been worse for him. Suddenly, everyone was reading his old texts — ones where he called Russell Wilson a “wuss” for not pushing harder on contract guarantees, and another warning that the grievance might open "Pandora’s box." Add in his 2023 podcast comment about players “pretending to be hurt” — which wound up costing the union another grievance — and it felt like the final straw.

Players, both active and retired, started speaking out. Will Compton. Benjamin Watson. Dozens more. The vibe turned fast: "How is JC still collecting checks when he’s part of what got us here?"

By July 20, after a week of mounting public pressure, Tretter stepped down. That meant the NFLPA — already shaken — had just lost its two most prominent faces with training camp less than two weeks away. The house cleaning wasn’t just about optics anymore. It was survival mode.

Don Davis Steps In — And the Search for a Saviour

Enter Don Davis, a former Patriots linebacker and longtime union insider known for being a steadying presence behind the scenes. Davis has spent over a decade in NFLPA leadership, helping guide everything from player safety negotiations to rookie symposiums. So when he called his appointment "crisis stewardship," it felt like exactly what they needed.

His first few moves showed he understood the assignment:

• He launched a reform task force, pulling together current player reps and outside labor lawyers to start cleaning up the mess.

• He demanded that all pending arbitrations and grievances be released to the full board within 48 hours to avoid another secrecy scandal.

• He froze all nonessential spending until the union writes a new ethics policy.

But Davis also knows this isn’t a solo mission. Behind closed doors, the union board has already begun laying the groundwork for a full executive-director search. This time, they’re promising open candidate forums, background checks that don’t miss scandal red flags, and a commitment to have a shortlist ready by Super Bowl week.

OneTeam Partners, Sponsors, and the Money Trail

While the union scrambles to contain the fallout from the leadership mess, its biggest financial engine — OneTeam Partners — is now in the crosshairs of federal investigators.

According to reports, the FBI has opened an inquiry into whether OneTeam misrepresented its revenue projections by as much as 30%. These weren’t minor bookkeeping errors; this is the kind of alleged inflation that can tank trust with major sponsors. Nike and Adidas responded by pausing new licensing deals. Fanatics hit the brakes too, re-auditing entire product lines tied to NFL player jerseys and memorabilia.

For players, this isn’t just bad PR. OneTeam is how many of them get paid in the offseason — especially veterans who aren’t pulling in signing bonuses or big guarantees. The licensing royalties it distributes are a lifeline for younger players. If OneTeam’s revenue drops, so do those checks.

Meanwhile, the NFL dropped a fresh $12 million legal bill on the union’s doorstep — reimbursement for the league’s legal fees in the collusion grievance. The league claims the union agreed to pay those costs, and now it’s demanding a check. That’s not the kind of invoice you want when you’re already dealing with an FBI probe and a fractured leadership group.

Some members of the executive committee floated the idea of a temporary dues increase to help stabilize things financially. That proposal was, to put it mildly, not popular. It sparked immediate backlash from player reps, many of whom feel they were kept in the dark for too long and now are being asked to help foot the bill for leadership’s mistakes.

The Bottom Line

The leak of that 61‑page ruling didn’t just confirm the league’s worst‑kept secret — it ripped the NFLPA’s wallpaper clean off, exposing cracks that were years in the making.

The good news? Bad leadership is gone, reforms are on the table, and for the first time in a long time players have a reason to be energized about union business. They can get involved now and help shape the future of the union. The bad news? Leverage only lasts if the next leadership group delivers — and ownership is already game‑planning the next move.

We’ll get our first real clue on September 1, when interim boss Don Davis addresses the media after his camp tour.  

Football never stops. Neither does the chess being played between the NFL and the NFLPA. And thanks to one leaked document, the board just got flipped for everyone.