The NFL Players Association is a labor organization. The key positions are inherently political. And a toxic slice of modern American political life has trickled into the union’s handling of the current cocktail of controversies that NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell is facing.
Attack. Attack. And attack.
In a statement issued on Sunday by the NFLPA executive committee to its membership (and leaked to Adam Schefter of ESPN, among others), the wagons were circled around Howell — and arrows were fired at the “fake news” from meddling outsiders.
“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 message asserts. “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.”
So where are the false reports of which they speak? For nearly three weeks, we’ve been covering every angle of this weakly-covered story. We’ve seen not a single report that insinuates a single doubt in the executive committee or suggests that the executive committee asked Howell to step down.
Likewise, we’ve seen nothing that would amount to an “attempt to mischaracterize the committee’s views.”
The only thing that would even support a conclusion of doubt within the union came from a one-word quote provided by executive committee member Cam Heyward to ESPN. Heyward declined to speak to ESPN because the current situation with the union was, as he said, “dicey.”
That’s not a “false report,” unless Heyward claims he didn’t say what he reportedly said.
That said, we’ll admit that some of what has been written here in recent days could divide membership, if membership: (1) reads it; and (2) chooses to care about it.
Frankly, we believe membership needs to be divided, if there are members of membership who believe it’s fine and/or dandy that Howell hid the collusion ruling from all players, that he didn’t use it against the NFL, that an entire free-agency cycle passed without agents being able to use the ruling as leverage in negotiations with teams, and/or that it’s acceptable for Howelll to have an undeniably cartoonish conflict of interest, via unnecessary part-time moonlighting with a private-equity firm that is currently rolling on the mattress with the NFLPA’s mortal enemy.
The league has used player apathy against it, for years. Union management has been doing it for at least two years, starting with the top-secret hiring of Howell. When called on it, the response is as predictable as it is sad.
Attack. Attack. And attack.
If the rank-and-file fall for it, it’ll work. Which will be good for current management. But not so good for the current or future members of the union.
It’s starting to feel like Lloyd Howell won’t be the executive director of the NFL Players Association much longer.
Already mired in perhaps more controversies than he can survive — and faced with the recent hire of an outside lawyer to review his activities during his two years on the job — Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler of ESPN.com have followed their compelling reporting from Wednesday regarding the previously-hidden collusion ruling with a bombshell regarding a blatant conflict of interest that could, in theory, get Howell escorted out of the building as soon as today.
Per the report, Howell is “working as a paid, part-time consultant for The Carlyle Group, one of a select group of league-approved private equity firms now seeking minority ownership in NFL franchises.”
Howell joined the firm in March 2023, three months before he emerged as the successor to DeMaurice Smith through a process that was cloaked in a bizarrely extreme degree of secrecy. After Howell got the job, via a process engineered by former NFLPA president J.C. Tretter, Howell hired Tretter in the newly-created position of chief strategy officer.
After The Carlyle Group secured approval from the NFL to pursue minority stakes in individual franchises, a union lawyer reportedly asked Howell to consider resigning from The Carlyle Group, given the appearance of a conflict of interest. Howell declined.
"[Howell] had no access to information about the NFL and Carlyle process beyond public news reports due to strict Carlyle information barriers in place,” Carlyle Group spokesperson Kristen Ashton said in a statement to ESPN.com. “Carlyle was not aware of the request from union lawyers for Lloyd to resign from Carlyle.”
Although Howell declined comment for the story, ESPN.com granted anonymity to an unnamed source who shared the self-serving claim that Howell recalls only that the concern was raised by “a union employee,” and that he said he would “do his due diligence” before making a decision.
Regardless, Howell is still working for the NFL Players Association AND as a paid, part-time consultant for a company that has been approved by the NFL to purchase minority stakes in one or more franchises.
Jim Quinn, who previously served as the NFLPA’s lead outside counsel, offered some blunt and pointed quotes to ESPN.com about the leader of a major sports union double dipping.
“As far as I knew, [former NFLPA executive directors Gene Upshaw and DeMaurice Smith] never had the ability to earn outside income,” Quinn told ESPN.com. “That wasn’t their job. Their job was to represent the players. . . .
“It would be an outrageous conflict for the head of a labor union to have an interest in a third party that is aligned with the NFL. The relationship between a labor organization and the employer organization is adversarial by definition, and as a result, as a leader, you have to be absolutely clear and clean as to having no even appearance of conflict.”
He’s exactly right. The ensuing conflict could help explain why Howell opted not to hammer the league with the glass-half-full ruling in the collusion case. Push too hard (by, for example, publicly calling for the Commissioner to resign over his role in the attempted collusion), and the NFL possibly will call the head of The Carlyle Group to complain about “their guy” doing or saying something the league office doesn’t like. (I can relate.)
As executive director of the NFLPA, Howell can have NOTHING that would potentially undermine his sole mission — and passion — for representing the interests of NFL players with an unrelenting zeal that makes no apologies and takes no prisoners.
Besides, Howell made $3.6 million during his first year on the job. He doesn’t need a side hustle; if he’s bored, he should get a hobby. Whatever he does, he absolutely shouldn’t be moonlighting with any company that has ties, direct or indirect, to the entity he should be fighting, every single day of his life.
When the NFLPA hired Howell and details regarding his background and ties emerged, I joked that Howell seems to be a possible Manchurian candidate. It’s suddenly no longer funny (if it ever was).
And the NFLPA’s player leadership should take the situation very seriously. At a minimum, Howell should be told this morning that he needs to resign from The Carlyle Group or resign from the NFLPA. Even if he chooses to give up his part-time employment with The Carlyle Group, the right outcome for the NFLPA could be to find a new executive director who puts his constituents No. 1 — with no No. 2.
It’s what the players deserve. Someone who will fully and completely commit to fighting aggressively for the rights of the men who put their bodies on the line for the entertainment of millions, and for the obscene enrichment of a handful of multi-billionaires.
Players, the NFL has weaponized your apathy against you, for years. More recently, Howell (and, frankly, Tretter) seem to have done the same thing. It’s time to wake up and take charge of your union.
I was going to add “before it’s too late,” but I didn’t. For two reasons. One, it sounds melodramatic. Two, it already is too late.
The new item from Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler of ESPN.com regarding the collusion ruling has plenty of interesting news. Perhaps the most impactful relates to something unrelated to the collusion case.
For now, at least.
Last month, per the report, the NFLPA hired Ronald C. Machen of Wilmer Hale firm “to work with a special committee of players to review [Lloyd] Howell’s activities as the executive director.”
The investigation was reportedly sparked by reports that the FBI and federal prosecutors are investigating the connection between the NFLPA and OneTeam Partners. Investigations of this nature can take on a like of their own, going wherever the facts may take them.
In this case, Machen could decide to explore why Howell would agree to conceal a colllusion ruling that amounts to a partial win — and that generated circumstantial evidence of coordination/collusion among multiple owners.
Beyond that, Howell’s reported role in shutting down an internal investigation regarding the OneTeam issue could become a problem. And if enough problems bubble up, there could be a new executive director of the NFLPA, sooner than later.
While the NFL technically won the collusion grievance over the effort to suppress guaranteed salaries, the NFL Players Association scored a partial victory. It also generated compelling evidence of actual coordination among owners. Inexplicably, the NFLPA has not used the outcome to its advantage.
Only now, two weeks after Pablo Torre Finds Out exposed the ruling and the NFLPA’s efforts to conceal it, is the union exercising its right to appeal the ruling.
Along the way, union management apparently downplayed the situation to player leadership.
The new report from Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler of ESPN.com regarding the collusion case includes an interesting nugget about the things said, and not said, by executive director Lloyd Howell to the union’s executive committee.
Per the report, Howell briefed the executive committee and NFLPA president Jalen Reeves-Maybin on the collusion case in the aftermath of the previously secret agreement between the NFL and NFLPA to keep the ruling quiet.
“According to several sources briefed on the meeting,” the report explains, “Howell informed the [executive] committee that the NFLPA had lost its collusion grievance but did not share any details of [system arbitrator Christopher] Droney’s findings or share copies of the ruling with the players. Instead, [Howell] blamed his predecessor, DeMaurice Smith, for wasting resources on the three-year legal battle. Smith filed the grievance in October 2022.”
Smith filed it in October 2022. And Howell took over in June 2023. The ruling came in January 2025. Howell could have settled the grievance. He could have abandoned the grievance. Instead, he saw the grievance through to a conclusion, and he secured a jarring finding that the NFL’s Management Council, with the blessing of Commissioner Roger Goodell, urged teams to collude. The case also generated persuasive circumstantial evidence of actual collusion, Droney’s acceptance of the predictably self-serving denials from the NFL’s witnesses notwithstanding.
Why would Howell cover up something good? Unless he was protecting NFLPA chief strategy officer J.C. Tretter from criticism for the mean things he said about quarterback Russell Wilson, Howell was simply (in my opinion) trying to undermine his predecessor’s efforts — to the clear and obvious detriment of the men Howell now represents.
While it’s great that someone has finally pushed the ball forward (and Van Natta and Kahler deserve plenty of credit for not sticking their heads in the sand, as many other NFL reporters have done), the situation keeps getting stranger. And it will be interesting to see how things play out moving forward, both between the NFL and the NFLPA and between the NFLPA and players who may choose to pursue legal rights based on a claim that the union violated its duty of fair representation to its membership.
The secret agreement between the NFL and NFL Players Association to conceal the ruling in the collusion case regarding fully-guaranteed contracts included an important provision that will allow the NFLPA to pursue an appeal, nearly six months after the ruling was signed.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the NFL and NFLPA agreed to pause “everything” in the post-ruling process indefinitely.
The pause, per the agreement, ends whenever one of the two sides wants it to. By choosing to file an appeal of system arbitrator Christopher Droney’s January 14, 2025 ruling, the NFLPA has unpaused the process.
This means that the case will now go forward, with a three-member appeals panel considering the ruling. And either upholding it or overturning it. We’ll defer a deeper dive on the standards that may or may not apply to the appeal of system arbitrator Christopher Droney’s ruling to a future blurb.
The NFLPA may be engaged in a little CYA.
Two weeks after Pablo Torre Finds Out (and I helped) peeled back the curtain on the outcome of a collusion grievance that both the NFL and NFL Players Association had buried for more than five months, the NFLPA made a decision.
According to Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler of ESPN.com, “the NFLPA, led by executive director Lloyd Howell Jr., decided to seek an appeal of the ruling” on Tuesday night.
That information came from an unnamed senior union source, who told ESPN.com this: “The appeal is a reflection of our obligation to enforce the CBA and our commitment to protecting our players’ interests. We’ll do what’s best for players and we’ll exhaust our options in doing so.”
Officially, the union declined to answer questions from ESPN.com about the lag in the filing of an appeal. The NFL also declined comment to ESPN.com on the matter.
Beyond the obvious question of whether the union would have made the decision to appeal the ruling but for PTF/PFT/O reporting on the existence of the previously secret ruling is whether the NFLPA has blown the deadline for filing an appeal. The decision was issued on January 14, 2025. Article 15 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which sets forth the procedures conducted by a System Arbitrator, has a clear — and short — deadline for activating the internal appeal process.
From Article 15, Section 8(a): “Any party seeking to appeal (in whole or in part) an award of the System Arbitrator must serve on the other party and file with the System Arbitrator a notice of appeal within ten (10) days of the date of the award appealed from.”
Obviously, more than 10 days have passed since January 14.
It’s possible that the side deal the league and the union struck to keep the ruling secret preserved the 10-day window for filing a notice of appeal. Under such an agreement, which may or may not exist, the 10-day clock would potentially not begin to tick until both sides jointly released the full and official ruling. (They still have not done that.)
It’s also possible, in theory, that the union filed a notice of appeal in order to preserve the ability to pursue the full appeal. In most appellate procedures, however, filing a notice of appeal isn’t an open-ended placeholder. It’s the activation of a formal sequence of events culminating in a full-blown appeal.
Regardless, the union will be appealing a decision that the union had previously kept secret. It seems inevitable that the NFL and/or the NFLPA will be releasing the full, official text of the decision.
The story of the collusion ruling is slowly dying on the vine, undoubtedly to the delight of the NFL and the NFL Players Association.
It’s dying because the people who cover the NFL aren’t willing or able to advance the story. (It’s unclear whether they’re even trying.)
Despite no new reporting, the story of last week received a mild jolt of adrenaline from former executive director DeMaurice Smith’s upcoming book. Via Daniel Kaplan of AwfulAnnouncing.com, Smith’s book (Turf Wars) addresses the collusion case, which was filed when Smith was still in the job.
“There were people inside our building who thought it was a waste of time, but internally, our office had evidence of collusion, including hearing from multiple sources that the league and teams were discussing their avoidance of fully guaranteed contracts,” Smith writes.
The NFLPA proved that the NFL encouraged teams to collude regarding guaranteed contracts, with clear evidence of internal communications aimed at getting teams to hold the line following the Deshaun Watson contract. And the ruling contains plenty of evidence of actual collusion, even if the arbitrator chose to ignore it.
Still, the story goes nowhere if there are no developments. And there will be no developments if the people who receive paychecks to cover the NFL take steps to preserve those paychecks by tiptoeing around something that could piss off the league and/or the union.
It’s been six days since Pablo Torre’s podcast episode regarding the collusion ruling landed. And very few people in and around the NFL are saying anything about it.
The NFL and the NFL Players Association haven’t said a word. While there’s still a chance either or both will hand-pick a reporter who is otherwise ignoring the case to spoon feed something that will clumsily push back against the bad look that the situation has given to both sides, don’t expect either the league or the union to have anything to say about the substance of the issue.
Those connected to the situation have nothing to say, either. Agent Mark Rodgers, who represents Russell Wilson, and agent Erik Burkhardt, who represents Kyler Murray, declined comment — even though their clients were two of the three quarterbacks on whom the case focused.
Other agents have declined to speak, with multiple agents explaining off the record that there’s no reason to make an enemy of the NFL or the NFLPA when their main business activities require having a working relationship with both sides.
“I’ve got mouths to feed,” one agent said under a grant of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. “These fuckers don’t forget things.”
Players aren’t talking either, other than former player and Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year winner Chris Long. We’ve heard that there are Executive Committee members and/or player representatives who aren’t under the thumb of current NFLPA management. None of them has said a peep about the current situation, however.
It’s unclear whether the players’ silence results from fear of reprisal, or from basic apathy.
Only one person, so far, would go on the record. Long-time agent Peter Schaffer provided a statement to PFT.
“It’s clear the arbitrator confirmed teams colluded against guaranteed money — something we, as agents, have known they have done since the advent of free agency,” Schaffer said. “The real question has always been how do we create and force change?”
Schaffer wants to spin the situation forward by focusing on the biggest impediment to fully-guaranteed deals: The outdated funding rule that requires a large portion of future guarantees to be put in escrow.
“For over two decades, the agent community has urged the NFLPA in CBA negotiations to eliminate the NFL’s unilaterally imposed guarantee funding rule on guaranteed player contracts — the biggest obstacle to securing more fully-guaranteed contracts,” Schaffer said. “Now, with this ruling, we have leverage. It’s time to act. Let’s go. End the funding rule.”
The funding rule was adopted to protect the players against potential insolvency. Now that every team is swimming in cash, there’s no need for it. But the league won’t give it up. Because it’s a bargaining chip in negotiations. That makes any effort to end it a potential win for the league.
It’s also a win for the league that few are saying anything about the NFL being caught colluding. And it’s a win, too, for the union that no one is calling for a mass ouster of leadership over the inexplicable failure to use the collusion ruling as a weapon against management.
We’ll see if the silence continues. Maybe the fact that Schaffer has issued a comment will cause others to throw a little caution to the wind and say what they believe, even if they might face repercussions from the big, bad wolves who are officially being very sheepish right now.
When it comes to the collusion ruling that came to light this week, no current players have said a word. Most former players have kept quiet, too.
On Friday, one prominent former player had something to say.
Chris Long, who entered as the second pick in the draft and exited as the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year (and won a couple of Super Bowls along the way), hosts the Green Light Podcast. His latest episode features Pablo Torre, who unearthed the 61-page ruling in the collusion case.
In it, Long bluntly spoke his mind regarding the NFL Players Association’s failure to use the partial victory as leverage, potentially in order to protect former NFLPA president J.C. Tretter from internal or external scrutiny over his criticism of quarterback Russell Wilson for failing to get a fully-guaranteed contract in 2022.
“After I say this, somebody’s gonna reach out to me and say, ‘Well, you don’t know the whole story’ or ‘yada, yada, yada’ or ‘You might wanna take a beat,’” Long said. “But if I found out that a major bargaining chip in us getting what we want is being buried to protect one person, I’d say, ‘Get this guy the fuck out of here.’
“And I got plenty of money. You know, I made my money. But for me, the thing that makes me upset is — and I understand why owners don’t want to give guaranteed money. You know, we’re like rally cars, bro. We’re all gonna break. And, you know, the product, you don’t want to pay guaranteed money for a product that you know that is gonna break and be sitting on the sideline. I get all that from a business standpoint, but this is what we want, and we’re not gonna get it, it seems like, ever, because now you’ve got a smoking gun that says, ‘Hey, they did collude.’ And the arbiter can’t even — the arbiter’s gaslighting us. The NFLPA is kind of looking the other way.”
Long also addressed the obvious imbalance between the owners and the players. The owners will shut the game down without blinking. The players will not.
“We’re never gonna have leverage,” Long said, “because a year of our earning potential and playing potential is too valuable to the person trying to leverage that year in relation to owners, who are just doing business and will continue doing business and have been doing business before you were fucking in high school playing football. Like, to them, a year is nothing. To them, a game is nothing. We, as a population in pro sports, we are probably the people with the least leverage, because there’s the most players on teams, it’s harder to get everybody mobilized and on the same page.”
Can it ever change?
Said Long: “The only way this changes, in my opinion, is if a high-profile quarterback . . . would have to say, ‘I ain’t fucking playing.’”
Good luck with that. High-profile quarterbacks are usually far closer to company men than instigators. But if one of them would want to defy that reality, there would be no complaining from the tiny little corner of the Internet.
Don’t count on it happening. Long was in Las Vegas at the Sack Summit. When he asked current players for their reaction to the collusion ruling, they hadn’t heard about it.
That’s the biggest problem. Player apathy. The owners use it against the players. More recently, their union has been using it against them, too.
The collusion grievance, which found that the NFL/Management Council encouraged teams to violate the CBA, flowed from an effort to limit the spread of fully-guaranteed contracts. And there’s an ongoing effort to limit the spread of fully-guaranteed contracts.
The vast majority of all 2025 draft picks have signed their four-year rookie deals. In round two, 30 of the selections have yet to sign.
The problem is that, for the first time ever, a second-round pick has gotten a fully-guaranteed contract. It started with Texans receiver Jayden Higgins, the second pick in round two. That sparked a fully-guaranteed contract for Browns linebacker Carson Schwesinger, the first pick in the second round.
For the next 30 picks, nothing has happened. Obviously, the players and their agents want as many of the deals as possible to be fully guaranteed. The teams want to draw the line as close to the third pick in round two (Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori) as possible.
There’s no colluding to be done, since the common goal of limited guaranteed deals is obvious. Still, it’s the current battleground when it comes to whether the full four years of a contract will be guaranteed.
None of the players will take something less than a fully-guaranteed deal below Emmanwori, because they don’t want to be responsible for ending the run of fully-guaranteed deals. And every team will want to be the one that successfully held the rope and won the full-guarantee tug-o-war.
Eventually, someone will have to blink. It’ll probably start later in the round, with players who wouldn’t expect to get a full guarantee anyway. And then it could work its way up the ladder.
At some point, a player is going to insist on a fully-guaranteed deal and the team is going to insist on not fully guaranteeing the deal and there will be no middle ground.
In a roundabout way, the mere existence of this problem proves that collusion, if it’s happening, is far from universal. The Texans created the predicament by becoming the first team to give a fully-guaranteed contract to a second-round pick. If all 32 teams were in cahoots on a plan to limit fully-guaranteed contracts, the Texans never would have done that.
However it plays out from here, one thing is clear. There won’t be any emails or other written communications encouraging the teams to resist giving players fully-guaranteed deals. Documents like that nearly created a major problem for the NFL.
It would still be a major problem, if the NFLPA had any inclination to capitalize on the leverage they’ve secured.
