Great competitors need great foils to forge great legacies.
Muhammad Ali had Joe Frazier. Bill Russell had Wilt Chamberlain. Magic Johnson had Larry Bird.
The National Football League once had the NFL Players Association. But as the NFL begins a new season, the organization that traditionally compelled the league to do right by players is in shambles. The NFLPA is no longer a viable opponent but a mere ragdoll.
And while the league may be cheering the NFLPA’s weakened status, in the long run a league is only as strong as its weakest link.
During a conference call last week, amid reporting by the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast and ESPN that uncovered conflicts of interest and inappropriate expenditures, NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell announced his resignation. Among the most damning disclosures was that Howell was working part time as a consultant for the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm seeking to invest in NFL franchises.
At the root of Howell’s troubles was the sense that he had betrayed the very group he was hired to protect.
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In October 2022, Howell’s predecessor, DeMaurice Smith, filed a grievance that team owners were colluding to restrict guaranteed contracts. The impetus for the suit was that three high-profile NFL quarterbacks failed to receive fully guaranteed contracts, such as the record $230 million contract Deshaun Watson received from the Cleveland Browns.
In January, the arbitrator ruled that there was insufficient evidence of collusion by owners. The arbitrator did, however, find that the union had proved that the NFL’s management council — with commissioner Roger Goodell’s blessing — encouraged owners to reduce guaranteed money in veterans’ contracts. ESPN’s reporting discovered that Howell had signed a confidentiality agreement with the NFL to conceal the details of the collusion arbitration decision from the executive committee and the player reps.
This was the betrayal part of the disclosures. In addition to resigning as NFLPA executive director, Howell resigned from his role with the Carlyle Group.
At the time, the selection process that led to Howell’s hiring was criticized because most player reps were kept in the dark about Howell until it was time to vote. Earlier this week, I asked New York Giants player rep Graham Gano if he thought the embarrassment surrounding Howell has gotten the attention of his teammates.
“Definitely. I’ve had some questions since everything’s been in the news lately,” he said. “I try to do a good job of filling them in. If anyone says they have questions and I say I don’t have the answer, I’ll tell them I’ll get the answer.”
“I think the worst was probably frustration,” he said. “But you got to roll with the punches, and you know that our leadership is doing the best that they can in trying to find an interim replacement. It’s unfortunate how everything’s played out. You know, when we elected him a couple years ago we were confident in the choice that we made. Things change over time, things you can’t control.”
One persistent issue over the years is player apathy.
In a column two years ago when Howell was hired, Jim Trotter, then with The Athletic, pointed out that only 48 of the 128 player reps showed up for a meeting to discuss Howell. He pointed out that one team did not send a player rep. Perhaps because players are making more money than ever, the prevailing sentiment when it comes to protest, resistance and even involvement with the union is: “I’m good.”
AP Photo/Abbie Parr
So, who will be the next NFLPA leader? It had better be a former player.
The NFLPA missed an opportunity to hire a leader with a player-first attitude in 2009 when leadership hired Smith rather than Troy Vincent, a 15-year NFL veteran. Vincent, currently the NFL’s executive vice president for football operations, had worked in the NFLPA under Gene Upshaw, who served as NFLPA executive director for 25 years.
While Upshaw resisted grooming a successor, he often hinted that Vincent had the requisite skills to lead the membership. Without going too far into the weeds, Upshaw and Vincent had a falling out, among other things over the treatment of retired players. Vincent wanted to bring retired players into the fold and heal what had been a ruptured relationship between current and retired players. Vincent also had issues with how the NFLPA had come to be run.
Vincent would have made deep and fundamental changes in how the NFLPA was run and who ran it. He may have rooted out lawyers and other personnel who were deeply entrenched in the NFLPA.
In any event, the membership voted in Smith, choosing to go the smooth-talking corporate route. They did it again with Howell.
So, who now? More importantly, will the rank and file pay closer attention?
“I definitely think it’s important for them to understand how important it is,” Gano said. “The players who make the most change are the ones that are playing right now, and that’s these young guys. They must understand that we all must care about the past, present and future of this game.”
There is no looming war with owners. Players are earning more money than ever, and that adds to their complacency.
The most immediate threat is a culture war with the White House, which has shown an inclination to make a regressive show of force. Most recently, President Donald Trump has attempted to bully the Washington Commanders into re-adopting a racist nickname that took decades to banish. In his first term, the president exhorted NFL owners to fire players who peacefully protested during the national anthem.
Even as the administration has declared war on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the NFL, while not always perfectly, has embraced DEI as an important initiative, even as it concedes that there is vast room for improvement. The league needs a strong players union — an active and engaged NFLPA — to keep the league strong on the field while making it an important pillar of equal opportunity and social justice.
Not that long ago, the NFL had a serious image problem around not just mounting concerns over concussions but evidence that the league had ignored or failed to disclose the severe aftereffects of concussions suffered by players. The league was pushed by the players association and by public opinion to take steps to make a brutal game as safe as possible by instituting rules to protect players and medical guidelines to protect concussed players from themselves.
A weakened union does no one any good. The NFL needs the NFLPA to be great so that the league can be great.
Ali had Frazier. Russell had Chamberlain. Johnson had Bird.
Right now, the behemoth NFL merely has a ragdoll.