‘It’s a mess’: Jordan Mailata, Lane Johnson sound off on the chaos within the NFL players’ union

After a Pablo Torre Finds Out episode revealed a previously hidden arbitration ruling in a collusion case, the NFL Players Association, the union representing the league’s players, has been rocked by high-level resignations from executive director Lloyd Howell and chief strategy officer JC Tretter.

“We’ll call it how it is: It’s a mess,” Jordan Mailata, the Eagles’ player representative with the NFLPA, said Wednesday. “But we have the right people in place right now — right now. to keep the main focus all about the players, right? We have the right people right now to get that job done and refocus for the players to feel supported. I’m pretty comfortable with all the calls that we’ve had lately and the direction that we’re heading.”

Union members recently learned that leadership had agreed to hiding the findings of an arbitration ruling with the league. After filing a claim in October 2022 under previous leadership alleging that league owners colluded to limit guaranteed money in player contracts following Deshaun Watson’s fully-guaranteed deal, the union learned that an arbitrator in ruling in favor of the NFL also found that the NFLPA had shown “a clear preponderance of the evidence” that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell pushed owners to restrict guaranteed money in player contracts.

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A series of additional controversies surrounding Howell emerged, including allegations that he had used union funds at multiple strip clubs, was consulting with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm approved by the NFL to invest in its franchises, and sexual discrimination claims and ties to an overbilling case dating back to his time at Booz Allen. Howell resigned on Thursday.

Tretter was initially perceived as the front-runner for the executive director position, but several former players were publicly critical of Tretter on social media, and the Boston Globe reported a text message was circulating among players urging them to get Tretter out. Tretter was the leader of the secretive process that appointed Howell as executive director of the players’ association. Tretter also ultimately resigned.

Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson said the union’s struggles didn’t surprise him.

“It’s a s—show, I guess,” Johnson said. “It’s been that way. People have known that. I’ve known. Hopefully, it gets better. I think it will … I think [the players] will care more when they have their voices heard. Right now, I think we have the weakest union in sports.”

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The CBA agreement doesn’t expire until 2031, but the union executive committee, featuring former Eagle Oren Burks, is now faced with electing new leadership, which hopefully will be around long enough to negotiate the next agreement.

In the meantime, Mailata said that from a player rep perspective, there’s more he could be doing to help strengthen his teammates’ position.

“I think I’ve got to do a better job of education as a player rep,” he said. “The guys may not know a couple of things about benefits or whatever’s going on in the news until they hear about it in the news. And so, I think I’ve got to do a better job of just communicating and giving them a heads up.

“It’s not on them. Yes, they should take an interest, but there’s a reason why we vote for a player rep, and I should be doing a better job of engaging with the guys.”

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Training camp is the perfect time for Mailata to do just that. One of the players in need of some more information is star running back Saquon Barkley, who admitted he hasn’t been following the situation closely, but hopes that now that he’s back with his teammates, he can become better informed.

“There’s always room for improvement [in the union], but sadly enough, I should be following that a lot more. I’ve just kind of been focused on a lot of other things right now. But that’s the beauty of training camp. That’s definitely going to be a conversation that comes up at the lunch table and be able to learn more about it and give you a better answer and better opinion on it in a couple of days.”