Pablo Torre Finds Out - Exclusive: The NFL Players' Union, the Silenced Top Cop and the Cabal of "Strip-Club Dreams"

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

As the NFLPA plots to restore its scandal-plagued leader to power, the labor group's outgoing lead security officer sits down with Pablo. And Craig Jones — the conscience of a billion-dollar union ��� does not hold back.Previously on PTFO:• Part I: The NFL's Secret Collusion Case Revealed• Part II: We Sparked an NFL Union Crisis. Here's the Sequel.• Part III: We Followed the Money in the NFL Union Scandal. So Did the FBI.• Part IV: The NFL Union Elected a New Leader. We Investigated the Hollywood Cover-Up They Ignored. (Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out, presented by eBay Live. I am Pablo Torre, and today you're going to find out what this sound is. Tell J.C. Treta to spin his 30 pieces of silver wisely. Right after this ad. This is the first time we've met in person. We just shook hands minutes ago. We spoke for the first time on the phone a couple weeks ago, but I've heard a lot about you.

I've heard your legend. And it is a legend. I mean, it's an amazing life you've lived. Do you mind if you establish here at the top? How old are you, Mr. Craig Jones? I am 71 years old. Your job, Craig, your job title at the union was what, and how long did you have that title? I was the lead security officer.

I was the special police officer. and I was hired at first in October of 2008. And then after two years being there as a contractual employee, the esteemed Timothy Christine, who was my security director, brought me on in 2010 to work as the lead security officer for the union as an employee. I got there two months after Gene Upshaw had passed. passed away. And so everybody was telling me what his methodology was, and that was to truly,

truly care and to speak plainly to the powers that needed to be spoken to so they can care as well. And then when the intellectually pugilistic D'Mora Smith came on, then that continued to elevate the game on how we were every day to come in with the very best of ourselves. So for people who have never visited the NFLPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., where you worked for almost two decades, what does it look like? Can you paint the picture for us of the building? Well, the building I'm in is in what they call the Golden Triangle, Washington, D.C., which is the business area, Washington, D.C., K Street, Connecticut Avenue.

It's a modern building, but it doesn't bring any attention to itself because of the way that was architecturally drawn, the simplicity of all of the buildings on that street is what brings about the elegance. One of the last weeks I was working there, there was a security guard having a problem across the street with someone. And I went across the street and asked him, was everything okay that he needed any assistance?

And he saw my work badge. He said, the NFLPA, he said, what is that? I said, that's who I work for. He said, the NFLPA? I said, yeah, it's right across the street in that building right there. And he said, I'd be damn. I've been here for eight years and I never knew what was going on at that building. You're describing this building literally like the person who swore to protect it with his life.

And when you say, you know, the NFLPA, like someone wouldn't even know that it was there. I mean, there's a larger metaphor there, I think, for how sports fans understand the union, which is to say, they know what's kind of there somewhere. but it's rare that they really get an inside view of like what happens here why does this matter why should i care i am a fan of the most popular sport in america the national football league i love football but now that i've done so much reporting on it it's crazy how much less we think about how important and fraught the union itself is and yet your response is pride the term that multiple former NFL players

and NFL players association union leaders have used to describe you in my previous reporting is that you're the conscience of the NFLPA. What does that mean to you? That means the world to me because my parents, we grew up during the civil rights era and my parents would always say to myself

and my six sisters, when it's time for you to stand up for what is right, not only for yourself, but most importantly for other people, raise your hand and do so. And because I was protecting people, I don't get do-overs. So I have to be on point every day. There was a famous sports photographer by the name of Kazmichi, who used to be at all of the boxing matches. And he once told me that the reason why your pictures seem to be too late or too early is because you've got to know when the proper moment is.

And in security work and protecting people, you have to know the moment before the actuality if someone's trying to harm people. And so I found that people began to say, you know, this Mr. Jones, he's something else. You're more comfortable than I imagine given how many people are afraid, Craig, to do this, which is to sit down

talking to a microphone about the things you saw at the NFLPA? I think the reason why so many people are afraid is because there were people who had livelihoods. And they knew that the new regime that came in under Lloyd Howe was more, we will punish you for you speaking the truth. Yes. When the new regime came in, they weren't interested in what we knew. They were only interested in what they wanted to perpetrate.

One of the richest labor unions in America is up for grabs right now. With total assets, according to the NFLPA's latest federal filing, of more than $1.3 billion. And oversight of that fortune belongs to the union's executive director, one of the high-stakes jobs in all of sports. You get a seven-figure salary to serve as the direct counterpoint. to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, sitting in labor negotiations for the most popular cultural institution in America. But the last executive director, the union elected,

you may recall in 2023, was Lloyd Howell. Lloyd Howell resigned amid a corruption scandal, as reported on this show last July. NFL Players Association executive director, Lloyd Howell, resigned late Thursday, ending his two-year tenure, as the leader of the players union. It has come out now of all the things that have been coming out about him,

which caused his haste resignation, that he had been sending in expense reports for trips to the strip club. He submitted his statement. It's clear that my leadership has become a distraction to the important work the NFLPA advances every day. But it wasn't just Lloyd Howell who had to resign, of course. His top lieutenants, former Browns lineman J.C. Treader, stepped down just three days after that.

And now, with the election of the union's next executive director underway, officially, as we speak, the same regime responsible for that scandal last summer, is on the cusp of power again. It, at best, is scandalous. they want to reinstate people in positions of power and governance who have already proven time and time again that they lack ethics. I immediately said to myself,

they want to keep the strip club dreams going. They want to keep the party going. They want to maintain the niceties that they were affording to themselves at the expense of the players. And the players, it is worth remembering here, were kept in the dark by Lloyd Howell and J.C. Treader when it came to the very thing that kicked off this entire saga on this show last June,

which is when we published what one union source called the Holy Grail of NFL documents, a 61-page collusion ruling that had been buried, covered up. As part of a secret confidentiality agreement between leadership at the NFL and the NFL PA. Because back in January of 2025, it turned out, an arbiter had delivered a partial victory in favor of the union that concluded that the NFL had encouraged teams to collude against their players.

Quote, there is little question that the NFL management council, with the blessing of the commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans' contracts at the March 2022 annual owners meeting, end quote. The Arbiter, a retired federal judge, did not find damages. But he included private texts and emails and closed-door testimony from eight billionaire owners, plus NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, on top of a whole roster of league and union executives,

including J.C. Treader. It was this All You Can Eat Buffet. of truly embarrassing discovery around the free agency of star quarterbacks Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, and Russell Wilson, none of whom were ultimately offered fully guaranteed contracts, even though Cleveland had just given one

to Deshawn Watson. As my special guest, Pro Football Talks, Mike Floreo, helped relay. I need you to play the role of Chargers' owner, Dean Spanos, and I'll be Cardinals' owner Michael Bidwill, if you please. Congratulations on this.

signing Murray. Thanks, Dino. These QB deals are expensive, but we limited the fully guaranteed money and have some pretty good language. Thankfully, we have a QB that's worth paying. Your deal helps us for our quarterback next year. I think many teams will be happy with it once they have a chance to review. Cleveland really screwed things up, but I was resolved to keep the guaranteed,

relatively, quote, low, unquote. And yet the most shocking part wasn't that the N. If I wanted to bury all of these communications, it's that Roger Goodell found a cover-up partner in the regime of Lloyd Howell, whose strip club receipts would prove relevant to a larger ongoing federal investigation, and J.C. Treader,

the ex-player president who engineered Howell's election only to try and wash his hands of it. Not least, I am told, because J.C. Treader now is back and somehow favored to secure the job he's been targeting this entire time. Executive director of the NFLPA. But one employee who refused, in writing, to be complicit with any of this, was the union's lead security officer, Mr. Craig Jones.

My employment with the NFLPA ended, I call it a termination of retaliation on February 13th of 2026. I was told that the reasons were for cause. And in my work contract, they have cause defined as things that an individual would do that would violate policy and procedure in the workplace. And the causes were three emails. But in the 17 years that I was, was there, all of my reviews as an employee were stellar. There was constant ascension. I was giving more and more

responsibility as I grew. There was never a time that my work ethic was ever questioned the way that it was questioned in the last month of my employ there. That's why I'm looking into a lawsuit. for wrong determination. Well, I should say, as you contemplate your own legal recourse, that the emails that were problematic in the eyes of this regime are some of my favorite pieces of sports writing in a very long time. And I want to walk through some of them with you here today because they are examples of someone on record,

before it was safe, before it was legally advisable even, saying what, as per their job description, they saw. It all came about because I questioned leadership on how some things were evolving that seemed to be sinister. And a lot of individuals in positions of power took issue with that, and they silenced me by terminating me.

It's astonishing for me to have done some amount of reporting to get to know the power dynamics at the union and then to wake up almost a year later and see that in some ways despite various resignations, which will describe, some things are exactly the same, if not worse. And so the elections that are happening out in San Diego,

this is the election of the next permanent executive director, a job that's only been held by a handful of people throughout the history of sports. It's a job that I just got to remind people opened up after weeks and weeks of our reporting around collusion coverups and conflict of interest. allegations, and also this particular all-staff email, Mr. Jones. I wonder if you could read this as I sit here in front of you.

The email states, and what of J.C. Tredder? He is the progenitor of this whole tawdry episode of POSERS, 30 pieces of silver, player leadership man K. and avarice. What of him? God bless the NFLPA so it may return to a download annals. And for the non-English majors among us, how would you translate that maybe in the way that you learned growing up?

The way that I would translate it is that my mother used to tell us all at a time, don't be touching nobody else's stuff. And J.C. Treta and Jalen Reese may have been... The president of the NFL player president. and a host of others thought that they were going to take advantage of the players we serve. And as we used to say on the street, create an okie-doke where others will fall for something that wasn't real. And so what of him who created all of this, who bought in Lloyd Howe? Because the whole way that this came about, of course, was done in secret.

That's correct. J.C. Treader had engineered via a constitutional amendment very quietly that actually the player voters on the board of representatives who choose the executive director, they don't need to know even who the finalists are until the day they show up to vote. There used to be a rule via the Constitution that you needed 30 days because, of course, vetting would be useful if you're a voter. knowing who the candidates are would be useful if you're a voter. In 2023, just for people who don't remember, the two finalists were Lloyd Howell, the former CFO of Booz Allen, who had never had a job in the world of unions or sports. And the second finalist was David White. That's correct.

Who was the former head of Sag After, which was the Actors Guild out in Hollywood, who has his own dossier that I want to get to. But these are two, quote unquote, pro-business executive. and the first thing I remember about J.C. Treader and his reaction to the Board of Representatives electing Lloyd Howell was that he was thrilled. And this was even though the board, of course, had done zero vetting prior as per J.C. Treter's constitutional amendment. And I dare say that my source on this is pretty good because it happens to be J.C. Treader himself. I know some people say the board needs to vet and qualify. That's not the board. board's job. The board's job is to interview and pick the best. Our job was to vet and qualify as an

executive committee because we were never going to have 570 hours to give to the board for them to have time to vet and qualify. That's why we put all the time in and all the work. And then in the end, the board picked an awesome and awesome new ED. And I think the vibes of that room, when the announcement came down, were unmatched. It really felt like you won a you won a football game. It felt like You were back in the locker room, the celebration. It was just, it was really awesome. And then I heard about the story of Richard Sherman, who was a former union official, of course, Hall of Fame cornerback.

And after three rounds of doing interviews, what I was told was that Richard Sherman realized that Lloyd Howell was being pushed through this process, step by step, by J.C. Treader. And according to a source familiar with Richard Sherman's thinking, quote, Lloyd Howell was treated like a project boyfriend. We can fix him. End quote.

Meaning that there was some palpable desire to make sure that Lloyd Howell got into the room where he would actually be a finalist. And when you look back now at the avalanche of things that apparently did not dissuade J.C. Tredder and the executive committee from making Lloyd Howell, a finalist for this job, and ultimately, quote, an awesome, awesome new ED, as he just said in that clip. I mean, where do you start? Do you start with the fact that he had recently resigned as the CFO of Booz Allen,

where a whistleblower inside that company identified Howell as a key character in what one federal prosecutor would call, quote, one of the largest procurement fraud settlements in history, $377 million for overbilling the U.S. government hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you mention the fact that Lloyd Howell had also settled a sexual discrimination and retaliation suit in 2015 that was filed by a subordinate at Booz Allen? I mean, when people in the building learned of this, Craig, just those two data points alone, what was the reaction? I mean, what level of shock was there that this man also had this baggage? And myself and many, many of the good people there were, well, how did this happen? If they had such a line by line formula that was going to bring to the union the very best and the choices, how did we end up with this guy?

And when he got there, it became even more apparent. How did we end up with this guy? Because he and everybody consorting with him were distanced, they were aloof, you can tell that they were duplicitous, and that they really didn't have the union's best interest at hand at all. It became difficult for a lot of us because we knew that this just is going to taint the organization. And it was infuriating because, Mr. Torre, I've seen. I've seen players destitute. I've seen players psychologically compromise.

And the players that I worried the most about were the ones who were embittered because they felt that the game had just left them behind. These characters who are aspiring to be back in a place of power in the union is because they see that we can take advantage of those who need us the most. Look, part of the problem with Lloyd Howell was also just the flagrant conflict of interest in his business background. You know, one thing that was revealed was that he was also working this part-time consulting job for the Carlisle Group. And the Carlisle Group is a private equity firm that happened to be on the NFL's approved list of firms that could buy stakes in NFL franchises. And this kind of conflict of interest, you're running the union, your arch nemesis, your adversary that you're trying to counterbalance.

is the league. And the league has this list of approved buyers, basically, approved firms that they can be in business with. It made it insane to contemplate. How did Lloyd Howell also have this side job working with management while he's representing labor? I have an operating executive of Carlisle Group. I do understand enough to be dangerous

when it comes to private equity. It is intriguing, but is intriguing that today's professional football player has more of an equity market. mindset. They want to put their money to work, right? And so in order to do that, here is a platform. Why can't they participate? And it could be for conflict of interest reasons. It could be all sorts of reasons. But in my experience, you can work through that, right? You can set up the right safeguards. And then you get to this quote that he gave to the athletic. This was July of 2024.

And he says this about the NFL's desires to expand to an 18-game season, which is a massive pivot point in any CBA collective bargaining negotiation, as is the one that's coming up. And Lloyd says, quote, it sounds attractive. Who doesn't want to see more football, myself included? End quote. About the very thing that he's supposed to fight tooth and nail to prevent. And just that, the idea of like, it's not merely the tawdry. It's also the tactical.

What's going on here? Who's he working for? There was an arrogance that he and his cabal carried. I keep mentioning Tim Christine. Tim Christine would do these wonderful backgrounds for the organization, and they never bought Lloyd Howe to him. They kept him away from the security department. And when Lloyd Howe was finally on the executive director,

he would literally stay away from the security department. He would come and park his car in the garage. He would walk back outside of the garage, go down the street to Starbucks, come back in the garage, get on the other thing, go straight up to his floor because he didn't want to come into the lobby and interface with security. They were all like that. Everybody that was involved with Lloyd Howe, J.C. Trutter, creating this miasma of mess, they would keep their distance away from everybody. and Mr. Christine used to say to me all of the time, I wonder why they stay away from me so much. And I said, it's because they've got secrets, and they know that you know how to best find them. And they protected themselves with distance and indifference.

I need to clarify that when you're describing the literal path that Lloyd Howell used to take up to his office, you are the person who was professionally there to make sure you're aware. of where everyone is. You're watching this on cameras. On camera in the main lobby, you're watching on camera. And when you mention a background check and the notion of due diligence on who are these people that were letting in,

not just to our building, but into the inner sanctum such that they have control over what is, you know, at last check, a war chest touching a billion dollars. This question is central to the story. What did you know and when

When did you know it if you're J.C. Treader, if you're Lloyd Howell, if you're the people who empowered them? When Lloyd resigns and then J.C. follows soon thereafter, it is worth pointing out that till the end, J.C. Tretter was defending himself. You know, he was trying to actually separate himself from Lloyd Howell. That he would tell anybody who would listen, it seems. He didn't really want Lloyd Howell. He wanted David White. And from the outside, something else that we discovered on. this show was that there was, for the record here, another secret arbitration ruling. The first one was the collusion suit. This one was from February of 2025. The month after the collusion suit ruling was passed down by that arbiter. And this suit was caused directly by

J.C. Treader, who had gone on a podcast to encourage players, running backs in particular, to fake injuries and gain leverage over their teams. Issues now, I don't think anybody would ever say they were fake injuries, but we've seen players who didn't want to be where they currently are, have injuries that made them unable to practice and play. But you're not able to get fined and you're not able to be punished for not reporting. So there are issues like that. I don't think I don't think I'm allowed to ever recommend that, but at least publicly. But I think each player needs to find a way to build up leverage to try to get

a fair deal. The NFL, tellingly, won this ruling, but even more tellingly, never announced that they won it. And again, this is the same timeline where the NFL and the NFLPA, under the leadership of Lloyd Howell and J.C. Treader, agreed to bury what was referred to as the Holy Grail of arbitration rulings in January of 25, the collusion suit.

And yet, there is J.C. Tredder on the Dan Patrick. show in July now of that year of 2025 after resigning to argue for his own innocence and even ignorance. The idea that I buried the collusion grievance, I've never seen the collusion grievance. I don't have access to the collusion grievance. I wasn't in any discussions about the collusion grievance, just not part of my job. I know we lost the collusion grievance in January that I knew that. I didn't know of any agreements or what was happening with that because it's not part of my department. Once it leaked a few weeks ago, I started learning more.

I was on the board call and the EC call when it was explained what had happened over the last six months to the players. So I know more now, but at that point, I knew nothing. It wasn't involved in the discussions. Is there any chance in your view that J.C. Treader and Lloyd Howell were not in lockstep about the collusion suit? Well, my instinct is that they were in lockstep. There would have been no Lloyd Howe if there was no J.C. Treader. There would be no J.C. Treader if there was no Lloyd Howe. And they all made a deal with the devil in themselves

and perpetuated each other's desires. Whatever you want, I can make happen for you. Whatever you want, I can make happen for you. What J.C. Treader wanted, according to four sources that I've spoken to, now dating back to last year, was ultimately to become the executive director himself. of the NFLPA. That level of ambition, which I thought was beyond dispute, but according to J.C. Treter in his exit interview with CBS Sports,

was definitely not what he wanted. He did say, quote, I have no interest in being executive director. I have no interest in being considered. I 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. I want to get my story out there,

and I don't want it to look like this was sour grapes, or I didn't get the job, and I wanted the job, all I want to do is tell my story and then go be with my family, end quote. How palpable was the ambition, in your view, of J.C. Treader to be ultimately, again, one of those precious few people to have held that job? I think that it was apparent by the way that Lloyd Howe always perpetuated J.C. Tredder. There was this constant dialogue that was going on, that he's my guy, We work in unison with each other. We feed off of each other.

Then when we go into negotiations, when we go into different elements of the business of football, where people have to be on the same thought process, we got it. Well, Lloyd Howell also, I was told, still maintaining a residence in Miami, that J.C. Treader, and you tell me if I'm wrong, because you're the guy who saw the cameras, J.C. Treader was very present in the building, and Lloyd Howell was not there nearly as much.

That's correct. And so the reason I ask is because if J.C. Tretter is the guy who is the former NFL player with the resume of being I was the player president, I was the former Cleveland Browns lineman, and Lloyd Howell is the guy from the world of business who has no connection to anything. J.C. Tretter, if nothing else, is the guy that I was told, Lloyd Howell is. Howell leaned on to assess how do we strategize around matters of football? That is correct. J.C. Treader, for the rest of us, he was the window dresser because players are comfortable when they see other players in positions of leadership. And that's how Lloyd Howe would push J.C. out there while he would go wherever he would go

in the course of a week or two. The Lloyd Hal Cabal of J.C. Treter, Anamika Gupta, Matt Curtin, Lloyd Howe, they were always in lockstep with each other. Anamika Gupta, the chief of staff to the executive director who still remains at the union. Matt Curtin, the president of Players Inc., which is, again, the business wing of the union. He has that job and has, it seems, achieved ever more power at the union as well as we sit here today. They operated with this opageness about them where you could see them, but you couldn't see them. And they were always together when they were in the building. They pretty much had the same habits.

They would speak but not speak. What does speak but not speak mean? We used to watch everybody come in on the bottom level, on the cameras. and when people would come into the bottom level waiting for the elevators, you would see people interacting with each other. J.C. Trader would have his head down. Lloyd would be looking somewhere else. Anomica had certain times of the day that she came in

when nobody else was coming into the building, and they all kept this distance about them all. But whenever we would do patrols on each floor, we would patrol the eighth floor on the executive floor, we would see these individuals together with each other, but not on a lot of occasions with other people. They minded their business because their business they didn't want anybody else to be in.

They had decided amongst themselves that we've got everything so well in place the way we wanted that we can just have that gangster swagger and just kind of go about our daily day doing what we want to do. And this is where I should just observe that Matt Curtin, the aforementioned president of NFL Players Inc., has become an increasingly significant character in the backstage mess of the NFLPA.

Because in J.C. Treter's embittered CBSX interview last summer, it's worth noting. Tretter had named Curtin to his shortlist of, quote, tremendously good people whom players could still, quote, put their faith in. But Matt Curtin arrived at the union in March of 2024 because he was handpicked by Lloyd Howell, on account of a relationship they'd built over decades working in finance.

And upon arrival, in fact, Howell had given Curtin the seat right next to him on the board of one-team partners, the for-profit licensing company, co-founded by the NFLPA, which has since put the union under FBI investigation. That mess leading to the recent termination of another employee who dared to allege the corruption of union leadership, longtime Associate General Counsel Heather McPhee. We'll get to that in a bit.

But less than two weeks ago, in addition to all that stuff, a letter was sent to NFLPA lawyers by anonymous NFLPA staffers, which said in part, quote, J.C. Treader is widely anticipated to be selected as the next executive director. director of the NFLPA. And that also, quote, multiple written and verbal complaints have been filed with NFLPA human resources against Matt Curtin. End quote.

The letter goes on to express these anonymous employees' fear of possible retaliation and calls for an independent external investigation so those complaints can be resolved. Now, for the record, a union spokesperson told PTFO about this. letter, quote, we have received an anonymous email that claims to represent current and former staffers includes several unspecified allegations. We are evaluating them and will take appropriate steps as warranted. We have no further comment at this time. End quote. Which brings us back to Craig Jones. There was always this notion about them that they had people in place that was going to run interference for them.

You don't have to worry about it. And if somebody like Mr. Jones or Heather McPhee or anybody else raises a ruckus, we will silence them in the way that we know how. And I just wouldn't capitulate to impunity. And there were so many wonderful employees also who said, no, we're not going to wrap ourselves up in the stint of all of this mess that they were creating. And our way to mitigate the madness is staying true to the game, staying true to the players,

keep producing the kind of good work that we've been doing. And through all of that sacrifice that we've always made, that's going to make more apparent that these individuals that are in seats of power need not be there. You mentioned Heather McPhee. Heather McPhee is the now former, long-time attorney for the NFLPA who repeatedly urged the union to investigate alleged self-dealing by NFLPA executives, including Lloyd Howell, as part of one-team partners, which is the NFL's

associated NIL business, a very strong business, which also remains, for those reasons that Heather was alleging, under federal investigation. And Heather McPhee has since sued the NFLPA in federal court alleging, quote, an unlawful and shameful conspiracy to intimidate and obstruct her as a DOJ witness, a federal witness, from cooperating with that federal investigation into union business. And so what's happening, by the way, as the existing, the pre-existing staff is now meeting the new regime, the new bosses, there are buyouts being offered. For those who dare to stick around, union employees with more than seven years of service are offered buyouts to leave. And that's about half of the 120 person staff, I was told. That's correct. There's a

house cleaning that's being attempted simultaneous to a new approach to being, quote, unquote, a pro-business union. And how conspicuous was that attempt, as you were talking to your colleagues and seeing the building react to such offers? Well, it was obvious because at the Super Bowl, I was in New Orleans where Lloyd was the executive director. And he was talking about how there needed to be

some upgrades and staff. Because with this brave new world of data analytics and all of these new concepts that they were bringing into the game of football, there needed to be staffing changes with people who had the expertise

to bring in these new analytical models. We need to freshen the place up, get new ways of thinking in here, different approaches to better serve the players, hear these buyouts that we want people to consider, let us know what you think. And there were a lot of people who were appalled as rightfully as they should have been,

who just simply said, you know, well, I'm not putting up with this madness. It's clear that there's something sinister about all this. I'm moving on. There were some people who wanted to stay because they loved the organization. I sent Lloyd Howe and all staff telling him that I wasn't going to accept it, that the place was benevolent to me, and that all of this seems shady.

And I said at the end of that email, tell J.C. Tredder to spend his 30 pieces of silver, wisely. Well, the powers that be never said anything. They never said anything at all. The buyouts and things came. People left. I collected everybody's keys. It was sad. I cried for some people because they were dear to me. They had a plan that they had executed and they wanted it to be done in the best possible way so they can succeed at their power grab and their adverse. I'm thinking of you being the guy who collects the keys, which is a hell of a part of the job,

is that you're also saying goodbye to the people who didn't want to, for obvious reasons in retrospect, didn't want to bother trying to save a regime or work with a regime, however they saw it, that was doing this to how you guys had been operating. But the question of strategy, what is the strategy here, how is the union working? It does remind me that there were buyouts being offered and taken.

And then there was a new title that was created, and that was Chief Strategy Officer. Checkmate, sir. You couldn't have put that any clearer. They had all of these buyouts. They had all of this, well, we don't need this and we don't need that, and we need to upgrade. and then they create a whole new title for someone who, what was he doing was the question that everybody asked themselves. J.C. Treader, the first ever chief strategy officer of the NFLPA in its history,

appointed by Lloyd Howell, the man who his process, J.C. Treter's process, had installed via this secretive, suspicious regime. But once Lloyd Howell and J.C. Treader both resigned last summer in the wake of all that reporting about this regime and their secretive and suspicious electoral process, the NFLPA needed to appoint an interim executive director. And the candidate they turned to, of course, was the other finalist J.C. Tredder apparently wanted in that process from 2023. David White. It was not employed at the time and had a pre-toler. previous scandal of his own while in charge of SAGAFRA, a union which White ran as a pro-business management-friendly leader, if any of that sounds familiar. And in 2014, White had threatened to sue Amy Berg, the Academy Award nominated director of a documentary called An Open Secret. And White threatened

to sue her if she did not whitewash remove entirely all references to SAGAfter's role in a massive Hollywood pedophilia scandal, which, you know, sounds pretty bad on several immediate levels. But the NFLPA's vetting of this alleged cover-up, according to a union spokesperson who spoke to the Washington Post last summer, was, again, unambiguous. The NFLPA has reviewed this issue closely and feels confident that it has been fully briefed on the facts and context, the spokesperson told the Post. And so I asked both Berg, the documentaries director, as well as the co-founder of a nonprofit dedicated to child actors, Anne Henry, who is a crucial source in an open secret, an obvious question. Did anyone ever contact you from the NFLPA or a search firm working for the NFLPA about David White?

No, they never did. Has anyone from the NFLPA, anybody from a search firm hired by the NFLPA, anybody from the search firm hired by the NFLPA, anybody from the world of sports? have they reached out to you? No one. No one has contacted me about this at all. Nothing. Which does feel like something. Something, in fact, that raises questions

about the role of the NFLPA's player president, the head of this executive committee that's been running the union, Jalen Reeves Maibon, over this whole last year of mess. And then a statement to Pablo Torre finds out, Jalen Reves Maven wrote in part the following.

Quote, the suggestion that this election is simply a continuation of the prior leadership is wrong. We brought in an independent executive search firm, followed best practice guidance from outside counsel, involved our general counsel at every step, and conducted one of the most rigorous searches in the union's history.

Every candidate was fully vetted, with background checks completed, and any prior issues reviewed. This is the Players Union, and under our Constitution, the executive director is elected by player leadership. Staff members, former staff, and outside voices do not decide that outcome. The players do.

End quote. And so here, this week after, one of the most rigorous searches in the union's history, are the three known finalists for the globally significant job of NFLPA executive director. There's a man named Tim Pernetti, commissioner of the American country. and former Rutgers athletic director, who's been described to me as the clear underdog. There's the clear favorite, J.C. Treader, who also happens to be, apparently,

the one and only player of all of those who applied, who was deemed worthy of finalist status, despite how much Jalen Reeves may have been, was just talking about how this is a player's union. And this, even though, J.C. Tredder, is the guy who brought Lloyd Howell to the union, such that they both had to be. resign last summer, giving way to David White.

And the third finalist you may now be unsurprised to learn is, of course, David White, who warrants a bit more description. Unik-esque, that's how I describe him. He is another toy in the game of J.C. Treader and the powers that be. who want to continue to undermine the organization. I asked David White in August of 25 at the all-staff meeting when he was being introduced to us, how do you feel about being the runner-up in the beauty contest and you were the better-looking one? How did that happen?

And I asked Jalen Reeves-Mabin, how did this happen? His response to the staff was, we're not. perfect. We weren't perfect by selecting Lloyd Howe over David White. So I went, well, okay, perfections for heaven, it's not for here, but is it something you would do better? And I asked Mr. White, I said, what do you think about it? And he said, the process is sound. They made their selections based on the procedures and policies that they wanted to follow them on. I'm just fortunate to be here now as your interim. And that was August of 2025. And an esteem player sent me an email and said, thank you so much for asking that question because there's a lot of us

who wanted to know that as well. So that's how I started. The HR department said I was being too hard on Mr. Maybin and my queries and questions were antagonistic. to stand down from doing all of that. I love the very basic fact that you've been on the record about this for a very long time, that if anybody wants to say this is sour grapes because the guy got fired, I think it could not be more clear that at every possible turn to the frustration of those in charge, you were asking the questions that lots of people again were just afraid to ask. Exactly.

And he was okay with, we're not perfect. And I was hoping from Mr. White that he would kind of defend himself in that process, but he didn't. He just said everything was sound. It was the way that it was supposed to be. The best man won.

I'm just happy to be here now as the interim. And so Unic was the vocabulary word that came to Craig Jones's mind. Yes, because he has no stones of leadership. He's not inspiring. He didn't come in and try to take the reins. He tried to maintain the status quo.

And let's keep things quiet. Come to me. We don't need to have a whole lot of discussions about a lot of things. The process is going to be what it's going to be. I'm only going to be the interim, but support the process that's going to eventually find a new executive director. Well, in November, Jaylen and Tom DePasso sent in all staff.

Tom DePasso, the General Counsel of the Union. Said that here's what's happening. We're starting the selection process again. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. Don't worry yourself with the process. The confidentiality keeps candidates sequestered from the public knowing because some of them have other jobs,

and they may not want everybody to know their other jobs. And I sent... Jalen Reese Mabin, an email saying, okay, I'm to understand that would fail a few years ago in this election with Lloyd Howe, you're going to use the same process to choose someone new? How do you expect for that to go over? And he just emailed me back and said, thanks for your input, Craig. And then a couple of days later, the HR department sends me an email. said that my email to Mr. Maven was again antagonistic. You're a real villain.

Yes. Craig, clearly. All these emails. How dare you? Yes. You know, when you mentioned Jalen Reeves-Mabin, we also had previously reported this, that when Jalen Reeves-Mabon was elected as the president of the NFLPA, it also came under, let's call them, interesting electoral circumstances.

Because this was in 2024. and Jalen Reeves Maven was one of the finalists. The other in his election for a player president was a player by the name of Calvin Beecham. And Calvin Beecham, among other things, kept on flagging one team, the thing that Heather McPhee was also flagging, as a potential problem.

He's on the record saying that, I am told. And I'm also told that in those small group meetings where Jailen Rees-Mabin would go campaign in front of the Board of Representatives, which had been the... split into different groups that Jailn-Ruze-Mabin would get a chance to campaign, and Calvin Beecham would get a chance to campaign. And then, according to one union source, who was in the room, J.C. Treader entered and campaigned on

behalf of Jalen Reeves-Mabin, negatively campaigning, to put it generously, against Calvin Beecham. And so, for those who don't know, the executive committee of the NFLPA, the leader, of course, is the player president. And so when you ask the question, when you yell the question into a void, how is this happening? The president of the union is in Jail-Ruze-Mabin, a player who has been very notably aligned with the man who had to resign in disgrace and now is back because that guy, J.C. Tretter, had installed previously Jalen Ruse-Mabin. That smells pretty bad. And everybody of decency and that, again, that wonderful love they have for the players we serve, they all know that, that it smells bad.

And the reason that they've managed to continue to push it through is because of the positions in power that they're in, the people that they have and the organization working inside for them. And I do have to say that, and I hope it changes, there is a degree, a small degree, a player apathy. And the union, the business. Well, that's what I was going to ask about, is the check on union leadership,

as much as Craig Jones can send emails, as much as Heather McPhee can document her objections on a legal basis and then also be terminated, the power still does remain in an electoral body of players. And I do wonder, do they see this as clearly as the people inside the NFLPA headquarters in Washington, D.C. It's been my experience with athletes that when their talents and their God-giving gifts and all of the things that they have going for themselves whenever they enter whatever arena that they're in,

when those talents and things are at the height of their beauty, and they're being paid and they can look at their bank account and they've got nice clothes and they're providing for their family and loved ones. The last thing they're thinking about is tomorrow because we're always told that the best moment is the moment you're in. And I think sometimes that there are people

who sit back in business and go, let's let that myopia that athletes have, because they're just seeing themselves in the moment work for them, but let's let the aftermath of the moment work for us. So people come in who are scurrilous, who are scheming, a lot of good, decent players are flimplammed, and they don't even know it till it's too late to know it. When they're sometimes going, that's business.

I ain't think about no business right now. I got other things I need to do. It's my car clean. You know, there are some people who, who are just sitting back, three o'clock in the morning, going, how can I get this play of stuff without him knowing it? So when I saw the finalist for this weekend, I went, they're keeping it going.

They are maintaining the okey-doke to continue to try to fulfill their greed in Everest. It's something that I can't get over. It's just rare. You know, in the story of sports, in the story of certainly like labor reporting, which is a limited field, you rarely hear from the security guard. You rarely hear from the head of security. My patron saint of security was Frank Wills, the gentleman who discovered the Watergate break in. He was asked many years ago, how did you happen to come across something that turned out to be so,

so big of a story in all of American politics. And his response was, I was just doing my job. I was on patrol and I saw some tape. I took it off, came back after lunch and saw the tape there again. I called the police and then they discovered this. So for me, that's all it's been. Just me doing what I was duty-bound to do, to protect and serve and to have presence and observation

in all set of circumstances that if something didn't seem quite right to speak to my director, Tim Christine, about it, or raise my hand in all staff meetings or send out all staff emails saying, consider this. And that's pretty much what I did. I had to do it. The thing that you've also been doing in your 70s

is not merely surviving prostate cancer, sir, and it's not merely burying your nephew, who is somebody that I can't help but think about because we were trying to figure out, when could you come visit New York, and you had to arrange funeral services. And so my condolences. Thank you, sir.

But the other thing you're doing, of course, is tending to your mom, the one who taught you to stay off of other people's stuff. Yes. And so as you think of your mom and again, your mom battling dementia? Dementia, yes. And trying to hold on to key memories you have for all time a record of how you saw this story.

And so I was wondering if you could just read the end of your goodbye email that you sent to the All Staff NFLPA list serve because I can't think of a better way to to end this maybe. Oh, yeah. To my former co-workers who I hold so dear, you know who you are. I genuflecting your honor on how you continue

unselfishly to serve players with unwavering verve and professional aplomb as executive ineptitude swirl still around you. Don't despair. Muhammad Ali once told me

the deeper the pressure, the greater the poise. You will always be cherished. I love you. I'm sorry, Ray. I'm sorry. They were so wonderful. And to see them disparaged and treated and kicked aside and cheated on. That group of employees that I worked with, they were just wonderful.

And I will always love them and always think about them and tell them, to keep up the good work. Don't, don't. If you got to take a standing eight, do so. But after you cleared your head, get back in the game, and take care of the players that we serve, watch over them the way you so wonderfully have done, and continue to believe that your work is not in vain.

Mr. Craig Jones, thank you for speaking truth to power. Mr. Pablo Torre, this is, been an honor of my lifetime because it lets me know that I'm not alone. Thank you, sir. This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Metal Arc Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.