Lloyd Howell‘s tenure as the NFLPA’s executive director has run into choppy waters. As the prospect of an 18-game season looms, the staffer set to be tasked with shepherding those negotiations on the players’ side has seen multiple issues come up this offseason.
After a collusion grievance produced some eye-catching headlines, some of them shedding light on the quiet power transfer to Howell in 2023, DeMaurice Smith‘s successor has run into conflict-of-interest trouble. Howell has been working as a consultant for The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm approved by the league to pursue a minority ownership stake in an NFL team.
A recent report indicated a Change.org petition calling for Howell’s resignation had circulated among NFL players and NFLPA staff. Pushing back on that, NFLPA leadership released a statement backing its chief. The NFLPA allows player reps to remove the executive director with a two-thirds majority vote at a meeting with a two-thirds quorum, but with the executive committee holding the line for now, no change at the top of this pyramid is imminent.
“As members of the NFLPA Executive Committee, we categorically reject false reports insinuating doubts within this committee or suggestions that we have asked our Executive Director to step down,” the statement reads (via ESPN’s Adam Schefter). “We further reject attempts to mischaracterize the committee’s views or divide our membership. We have established a deliberate process to carefully assess the issues that have been raised and will not engage in a rush to judgement.
“We believe in and remain committed to working with our Executive Director and other members of NFLPA staff and player leadership who have a shared mission to advance the best interests of players. As we approach the 2025 season, we look forward to continuing our important work together and ensuring the strength and unity of our association.”
Howell received $3.4MM consulting for Carlyle in 2024, and although the firm (via an emailed statement) indicated Howell had “no access to information about the NFL and Carlyle process beyond public news reports,” the optics are obviously not ideal for the third-year union chief. Howell also received almost $700K from board positions at GE HealthCare and Moody’s, according to ESPN. This multi-front workload differs from previous NFLPA executive directors, who had neither outside jobs nor paid board seats during their respective tenures.
Smith was at the wheel when the NFLPA ratified the 2011 and 2020 CBAs, the second of those accords running through the 2030 season. Howell and NFLPA president Jalen Reeves-Maybin are unlikely to be in position to negotiate a new CBA for a few years at least. But Howell is positioned to be the union’s point man when that time comes. Based on the stakes, scrutiny from NFLPA ranks would be understandable.
The appeal of the recent grievance ruling — one that determined owners likely aimed to reduce guaranteed money in high-profile contracts (while stopping short of deeming collusion occurred) — surfaced days after veteran reporter Pablo Torre made the grievance findings public. The ruling came down in January, however, meaning it took the release of the report to prompt the union to act here.
Howell having quietly added former NFLPA president J.C. Tretter as the union’s chief strategy officer has drawn scrutiny due to the latter’s involvement in the Russell Wilson leg of the collusion grievance. Tretter not wanting his texts to Smith about Wilson being “a wuss” for not sticking to his ask for a fully guaranteed Broncos extension (in 2022) to be made public was believed to be a driving force behind an NFLPA effort to conceal the report’s findings.
Howell conducted a conference call with the executive committee (which includes 10 members and Reeves-Maybin) shortly after the ruling was made. He passed along the outcome of the case but did not mention specifics or distribute copies of the findings from Droney. The lack of transparency during the early part of Howell’s tenure has certainly generated questions about his leadership, especially as these developments have come after he was elected in relative secrecy in June 2023. As the appeal process begins, however, the NFLPA is sticking with the leader it tabbed.
Come the $&@# on. This is an easy horse to realize you shouldn’t back.
The statement speaks for itself and it’s fair. The union themselves should remove this obvious conflict of interest but at the same time do we really believe athletes, in particular football players, are as adept enough at business as they are at football to make this clear and obvious call? Probably not. Clearly they didn’t vet this guy’s character well enough the first time. But more importantly… why this guy? Because you’re too senaitive to take advice. There are probably thousands of candidates out there with no conflicts of interest and are more pro union. Pick one of them and bounce this crook.
Alternatively, could there be some unknown positive that Howell provides that, say, Smith did not? It’s hard to say without having inside knowledge. I’d say that the union could just be putting that out to protect the power/reputation of the director as an institution, but wording (“lies”) makes it sound like it actually does back Howell on the controversy itself.
I’d tend to agree that, from the way that it looks sitting here, there’s not much reason to support Howell’s tenure. I’m sure that there’s more that we don’t know, but at a minimum, there are concerns that could be true. It’s seemingly enough to push away the risk. At a max, there’s a much more blatant conflict of potential conflict should the Carlyle Group make a bid. It’s like Brady as an owner and as an announcer-maybe the exploitation happens, maybe it doesn’t, but why even risk it?
Of course they are. They are easily misled and he knows it. They get what they deserve.
Tom’s broadcasting career & ownership position are nothing compared to this.
Former Viking Chris Carter got a lot of flack for saying it but he was right: “If you gotta crew, you gotta have a fall guy in the crew”.