Cleveland Browns J.C. Tretter Elected NFLPA President
The NFL players association held their presidential election and Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter has been elected. In a field that included Michael Thomas of the New York Giants and Sam Acho of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tretter received the most votes and will replace three-term president, Eric Winston, who was no longer eligible as he hasn't played in the past two seasons.
Russell Okung, now of the Carolina Panthers, dropped his bid to be president as he announced a grievance he was filing. He threw his support behind Thomas.
Tretter will serve a two-year term. He is a proponent of the collective bargaining agreement that's currently being voted on by the players. Acho was for it and Thomas was against it. Tretter put out information to help players see the potential downsides of passing the new CBA in order to try to inform the electorate and enable them to make the most informed decision possible. It was largely in an aim to ensure that if it does pass, players were not taken by surprise.
The Cleveland Browns are currently being led by a pair of Ivy League graduates in head coach Kevin Stefanski went to Penn and general manager Andrew Berry attended Harvard. Now, the players union will be led by a Cornell graduate in Tretter.
The votes for the proposed CBA are due Saturday evening at 11:59pm. If passed, it may not be clear what Tretter's impact as president will look like immediately. If not, he will be a big part of further negotiations between the players union and the owners.
