NFL officials and owners have closely monitored as the NFLPA has worked to resolve its internal issues over the course of the last eight months. The league has hoped that a return to normalcy within the players union will enable them to strike up talks with NFLPA brass about an expansion of the regular season and international slate, and also begin preliminary discussions towards a new collective bargaining agreement.
The regular season stands at 17 games, and the NFL can’t add another game without negotiating with the NFLPA. The cap on international games is 10 games, and owners can’t add to that total without negotiations either.
When speaking in February on the well-known desire of NFL owners to expand the regular season to 18 games and international series to 16 contests per season, NFLPA president/Chicago Bears linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin and then-interim executive director David White both expressed no desire to engage in negotiations before the expiration of the current CBA, which runs through the 2030 season.
However, now that the union has elected JC Tretter as full-time executive director, it’s expected that NFL officials will at the least attempt to strike up a dialogue with the players on a variety of business topics, schedule ranking among them.
Tretter gave The Athletic a lengthy interview on his journey back to the union, his new role and the mission ahead of him. He also discussed his feelings on an extended regular season and an increase in international contests, and when negotiations on such could begin.
Excerpts follow.
The outside perception is that the union is a kind of weakened opponent and that the owners are circling and they’re ready to strong-arm you guys into accepting the 18-game regular season, 16 international games and whatever else they want. They’re on record saying that’s what they want. What are you bracing for?
Yeah, I think (commissioner) Roger (Goodell) and the owners have been very vocal about what they’re looking for. They can do that. They can share whatever they want. In the end, they have to negotiate with us. My job — our job — is to get us prepared for those moments. One, understand what we want, prepare our guys for those moments and make sure they’re ready to negotiate. That’s a group of our executive committee, that’s our negotiating committee. Our board holds the power of the vote, making sure they understand the roles and responsibilities and how we’re going to succeed. … My job, our players’ job, our staff’s job, is to work our ass off for the next two, three, four or five years to prepare for that moment and go succeed, and in the end, we’re gonna let our results speak for themselves.
How concerned are you about an expansion from 17 to 18 games and from 10 to 16 international contests and the toll that that would take on players’ bodies?
I think one of the benefits of having a former player as executive director is this isn’t like an empathy answer, or like, “Oh, I can imagine what it feels like.” I was a guy that my last few years where I would finish a game on Sunday and I wouldn’t be able to walk until Thursday. They’d have to pull out over 100 ccs of fluid in my knees, and that was just so I could walk then on Friday, so I can start walking and try to get ready to play on Sunday. I wouldn’t practice because my knees were shot by that time of my career. I understand what playing football does.
Since I’ve retired, I understand how my body has changed and what I will never be able to do again because of playing. So I understand what it felt like when I played 16 (games) and then moved to 17. I understand the toll that takes on the body that doesn’t take anybody to explain it to me. I understand the same thing with international. I played an international game. I understand the timeline and how tough it is to recover, how tough it is to turn around and get on the flight on the way back and then get ready for the next week. That is not easy.
There are things that are not good for our players that we need to make sure we’re protecting them from. And as of right now, those are all subjects of bargaining. The league can’t expand past 10 international games. The league’s at 17 games in the CBA, that is where we’re at, and we’re going to make sure we defend our players and their health and safety, because our guys feel they know what this feels like.
The schedule increased from 16 games to 17 in 2021. Are four seasons enough to know how an extra game has impacted players in terms of increased injury risk or career length? Or is it still too early?
I mean, I’d have to talk to our health and safety team. I have to have those discussions to see what we’ve learned. I’ve been gone for eight months. … But, we know what the toll on the body was at 16 games, right? It’s not like we’re, “Oh, we were peachy at 16, but 17 really put us over the top.” No. We were banged up at 16. So the expansion to 17 was a big ask that took a lot of tight votes that ended up getting us to 17. … We knew what 16 did, and every game above that continues that grind on guys. I don’t think we’re waiting to see whether it’s not as bad as we thought. We were already in a pretty rough spot at 16.
How quickly do you think that these owners are going to ask you guys to come to the table?
Uh, now, because they can ask, right? They could call me tomorrow and ask. The answer is no. We’re not in a position to do that. … We’re not willing to do that. In the end, those are decisions that will be made by our players, our executive committee, our board. They just hired the director. I need to come in and make sure that this organization stabilizes. I think David (White) did a great job. Kudos to David White for stepping in in a really difficult time and stabilizing the organization. I need to continue that, and I need to start building us forward. And the time for stabilizing has really ended. We’ve stabilized now. We need to start building up to do the things we need to do.
That’s what I’m tasked with. It’s looking forward to doing that. … But we’re not going to start (negotiating) until we’re ready to start, because if we start before we’re ready, we’re not going to succeed in our job. … I’m sure they’ll ask. I’m sure they’ll poke around. That’s not surprising. They’ve been kind of poking around publicly, at least for a while, but that’s fine. It’s their job to ask. Our job is to be ready. Our job is to be prepared, and our job is to succeed. That’s what we’re focused on doing.
