Last month, long-time NFL Players Association in-house counsel Heather McPhee sued the union. By the end of the month, the NFLPA had fired her.
Via Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN.com, a court filing made this week in McPhee's case asserts that the union fired McPhee on December 30, 2025. She previously had been on paid leave.
Although the NFLPA surely will argue that the termination was the next logical step in the actions taken based on its belief that placing her on paid leave was justified, McPhee will (or at least should) amend her civil complaint to argue that she was fired in retaliation for filing her lawsuit.
Her case asserts several legal theories — obstruction of justice, sex discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of contract. She claims that she was targeted for mistreatment based on her concerns regarding two situations that came to a head in 2025: the One Team Partners’ Senior Executive Incentive Plan, which was aimed at compensating One Team Partners board members who were affiliated with the NFLPA; and the NFLPA’s decision to conceal a partial victory in the collusion grievance relating to the NFL’s failure to give guaranteed contracts to players.
It's one thing to prove that adverse employment action was motivated by a stew of protected characteristics and activities. It's another to make the bright line connection between two clear events. She filed her lawsuit and, less than two weeks later, she got fired.
Van Natta Jr. also reports that the union placed security officer Craig Jones on administrative leave this week. Per the report, the NFLPA objected to Jones's decision to communicate with the media in July 2025, after he sent an internal email that questioned the role of former NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter in the chaos that erupted for the union last summer, sparked by the Pablo Torre (and I helped) report revealing the secret collusion ruling.
”.....and what of JC Tretter?” Jones wrote at the time. “He is the progenitor of this whole tawdry episode of poseurs, 30 pieces of silver, player leadership manque and avarice. What of him? God bless the NFLPA so that it may return to its hallowed annals.”
The action taken against Jones could become relevant and admissible evidence in McPhee's case, part of the effort to prove that union management reacted strongly (and arguably improperly) to criticism over the One Team Partners issue and the collusion ruling.
The lawsuit remains in its infancy. Most cases like this take months (and sometimes years) to be resolved. Given the information that an aggressive approach to the discovery process may uncover, the NFLPA's best move could be to settle the case — and to put this specific byproduct of the disastrous hiring of former executive director Lloyd Howell in the rear-view mirror.