Don, where does this whole story start?

It begins in the fall of 2019.

DeMorris D. Smith, who's the head of the National Football League Players Union,

is going into team locker rooms as he does every fall to meet with players,

bring them up to date on what's happening.

This time, he's really trying to rally the rank and file for the upcoming CBA negotiations.

Don Van Nata is an investigative reporter for ESPN.

He knows the owners want to expand the regular season from 16 to 18 games,

and Smith is repeatedly telling players in every locker room, hell no, on 18 games.

No way we're going to agree to that in the name of player safety.

But a few months later, some players say they are extremely surprised to learn that D. Smith had essentially begun negotiations with owners at 17 games in the regular season.

And in a conference call in December 2019, Richard Sherman asks Smith point blank if 17 games was non-negotiable.

And D. Smith says yes.

This shocks many players.

It's this action by D. Smith and many actions prior to that one that have many people around the league now, including player leaders, wondering if D. Smith is an asset to management instead of the players.

One owner told me, if we could, every owner would build a statute of D outside their stadiums.

That's how good he's been for our business.

So we really started there in looking at D. Smith and his legacy as leader of the NFLPA.

When the NFL-PAL-Reach, when the NFL reached a new 10-year collective bargaining agreement with its players last March,

it should have been this defining moment for NFLPA executive director, Demora Smith.

Instead, some players, and even some owners, have come to see Smith as an asset to the very

group he's meant to oppose NFL management.

...