From a sports media perspective, it’s hard to think of many quotes that have aged worse this year than Bill Simmons questioning Pablo Torre and his reporting.

Sure, Simmons was referring to multiple deep dives on Bill Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson — a topic the Sports Guy was hardly alone in criticizing Torre for obsessing over. That, however, didn’t stop the Meadowlark Media host from making light work of defending the merits of his journalism to Simmons, who ultimately admitted that he hadn’t even heard the episodes of Pablo Torre Finds Out he had criticized.

Even back then, it was clear that Torre was in the middle of revolutionizing what we consider to be modern journalism. But lest you were someone who remained unmoved by podcast episodes focused on a 73-year-old football coach and his 24-year-old girlfriend, the ex-ESPN senior writer was just warming up.

Just three weeks after his high profile feud with Simmons, Torre released an episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out with Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, revealing a previously private document regarding the NFL Players Association’s grievance against the league regarding accusations of collusion. The entirety of the hour-long episode makes for a fascinating listen. Not only did it reveal that an independent arbitrator determined that the NFL Management Council encouraged teams to reduce contract guarantees, but it also spotlighted the Game of Thrones-like maneuvering that resulted in Lloyd Howell Jr. becoming the NFLPA executive director and former NFLPA president JC Tretter obtaining a newly created position as the organization’s chief strategy officer.

What’s more is that Torre’s reporting uncovered that the NFLPA sought to effectively hide the damning document from its members, not because it ultimately ruled in favor of the league, but because it contained evidence that Tretter had “repeatedly insulted” Russell Wilson following his contract extension with the Denver Broncos. That seemed to establish a pattern of NFLPA leadership prioritizing its own personal interests over the organization itself — and they might have gotten away with it if not for that pesky podcaster.

As the drama surrounding the NFLPA remained in the headlines thanks to Torre and Florio’s work and additional reporting from ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler, Pablo Torre Finds Out released a sequel to its initial episode on the subject last week. In the episode, Torre and Florio unsealed another previously private document that the show’s host had obtained, this one regarding a grievance the NFL filed against the NFLPA based on comments Tretter made about fake injuries during a 2023 appearance on The Ross Tucker Football Podcast.

You can read a full breakdown of the situation on Florio’s website, but the most important part to know is that the NFLPA apparently not only lost the grievance, but hid the ruling from its members. Torre and Florio connected that arbitration case to the one regarding collusion, theorizing that the league and NFLPA leadership effectively agreed to not release either ruling in order to save face.

Writes Florio: “Common sense suggests an obvious link between the NFLPA’s discretion as to the collusion ruling and the NFL’s discretion as to the fake-injury ruling. The NFLPA doesn’t hammer the NFL for getting its hand caught in the collusion cookie jar, and the NFL doesn’t hammer the NFLPA for the ruling arising from Tretter’s ill-advised comments about faking injuries.”

Hours after the episode released — and Torre posted the document to his Substack — Howell resigned. Three days later, Tretter, who was considered the frontrunner to replace him as the NFLPA’s executive director, also resigned, creating a shocking level of upheaval within the organization on the eve of its members reporting to training camp.

https://t.co/gaCeixGrIK pic.twitter.com/xJFdtSlEyD

— Pablo Torre 🕳️ (@PabloTorre) July 18, 2025

Several other details regarding Howell, Tretter and the NFLPA have emerged throughout all of this, including apparent conflicts of interest and salacious strip club expenses. And although ESPN’s reporters and Florio deserve their own kudos for their work both breaking news and keeping the story in the spotlight, perhaps none of it would have been possible had Torre not obtained these two documents.

While it’s not uncommon for reporting to result in change, it often comes in the form of stories that would have found their way into the public eye one way or another. That’s not what happened here; there’s no reason to think these details would have emerged if not for Torre’s work. And it’s a credit to him that he not only unearthed them, but managed to present them in both an entertaining and digestible manner.

The NFLPA is a big deal. It’s responsible for representing and protecting the athletes who play in America’s most popular sports league and a sport that also happens to be pretty damn dangerous. And while the organization may currently be in a state of chaos, all indications are that it will (or it at least should) be better off in the long-term thanks to the changes that Torre’s reporting has helped enact.

Whether he’s covering Jordon Hudson’s AirBNB usage, Dallas Cowboys fans on death row, the latest NBA gambling scandal or conflicts of interest at the highest level of the NFLPA, Pablo Torre isn’t just doing real journalism; he’s doing real journalism that no one else is doing. And despite some protests of some of his seemingly less-serious episodes, that much has been obvious to anyone who’s actually been listening.