The NFL Players Association has in recent weeks plunged into a state of disarray, thanks to the sharp disagreement over the proposed CBA. With new president (and Browns center) JC Tretter now in place, it’s time for the union to become unified again.
In 2011, the sharpest disagreement arose between NFL and NFLPA negotiators. Nine years later, the easy part was getting the league and the union on the same page. The hard part has been getting the union to accept the judgment of union leadership on a deal that executive director DeMaurice Smith has said he’s “proud of.”
He can’t be proud of his inability to keep the Executive Committee together on the deal that they negotiated, and he can’t be proud of the players’ willingness to divide and conquer from within, making it even easier for the league to drive a hard bargain if the CBA is rejected. If the league opts not to lock the players out but to impose the last, best offer as the new work rules, daring the players to strike, will 2/3rd of them vote for that course of action, given the current atmosphere within the union?
Tretter needs to impress upon player leadership and, ultimately, the rank and file the importance of everyone being on the same page, at least as it relates to anything said and done publicly. When the owners disagree on terms to be offered to the players, the dissenters don’t say so, on social media or anywhere else.
The recent story that owners are hoping the players vote no is both a scare tactic and dead-on balls accurate, especially as the economy careens toward a recession. The owners who didn’t want to do the deal want to be able to say “I told you so” to their peers before they pivot to a strategy aimed at getting an even better deal. If any owners disagree with that approach, the last thing they’ll do is say so to anyone outside the family.
And so the first thing Tretter needs to do is develop a strategy for getting leadership on the same page and keeping it there. It’s critical that a union present a united front. This union recently hasn’t, which sets them up to be exploited if/when bargaining resumes.
We’ll know whether bargaining resumes once we know the outcome of the CBA vote. If the vote passes, Tretter will need to find a way to placate those who will still oppose it. If it fails, Tretter will need to find a way to bring everyone together behind a common vision and strategy that will be implemented without giving the league any reason to believe that there’s benefit in trying to drive wedges between groups of players.
That may be wishful thinking, giving the dramatic differences between star players and those just trying to make the team. But Tretter needs to find a way to make the situation better than it currently is, because it’s currently about as bad as it can be.