'It went too far': What's next for the NFLPA after union chief Lloyd Howell's resignation?
The reporting, which would expand as the days went on, raised a clear-cut question about whether Howell could ultimately continue as the head of the NFLPA, which had a longstanding history of disallowing executive directors to hold paid side jobs — let alone positions with companies or firms that were mingling with NFL teams. Aside from the ESPN reporting, multiple outlets had fleshed out a confidentiality agreement between the NFLPA and NFL, which kept secret details of an arbitration decision that determined league executives had pressed NFL team owners to reduce guaranteed player compensation.
Those reports, and more to come, would lay down a baseline question: Could Howell survive this?
'It's going to be whatever the players want,' the source with union ties said. 'Are they going to tolerate this? There's always been a dicey connection between the player leadership [inside the union] and the rest of the player membership. Regardless of what the player leadership thinks about Lloyd, I think the last week of headlines has potentially made his relationship with the rest of the membership untenable. … You're starting to see some cracks.'
Just days after this conversation, and on the heels of additional reports that raised an array of other potential concerns swirling around the union, Howell tendered his resignation to the NFLPA's executive committee. When the sun rose Friday morning, the NFLPA no longer had an executive director, leaving leadership to scramble for an emergency meeting in the coming days to set a new course.
One of the first questions that will need to be answered is whether chief strategy officer JC Tretter will remain. Tretter served as the president of the NFLPA from 2020 to 2024, overlapping with his final years playing for the Cleveland Browns. It was during that time when he constructed a highly secretive election process that ultimately concluded with Howell landing the union's executive director position. In turn, Howell then hired Tretter as the union's chief strategy officer, creating at least the perception that the two men were linked at the hip inside the association.
We'll get to that pressing business in a moment. But first, a small autopsy on Howell's quietly turbulent two-year stint with the union.
Missteps over talk of 18th game, schmoozing with Jerry Jones
Speaking with current and ex-union sources over the past week, it was clear that while Howell had the backing of most (if not all) of the 10 player representatives on the executive committee, his standing didn't come without questions. Beyond some of the obvious concerns — most especially his standing as a consultant for The Carlyle Group and the decision to enter into the aforementioned confidentiality agreement with the NFL — some inside the union bristled at Howell's penchant to be a dealmaker and collaborator first and foremost, which was something of a departure from the saber-rattling and often confrontational style of the previous executive director, DeMaurice Smith.
It was something that pricked membership most significantly when his initial stance and comments on adding an 18th game to the NFL season featured an open-mindedness that raised eyebrows. Eventually, it became clear to Howell that the vast majority of his membership were against it, leading to a course correction that appeared at times to be a full reversal between his first and second years as the union head.
Some in the union continued to be wary that Howell was too openly embracing the NFL and its club owners as partners rather than adversaries at the negotiating table. Some of it was fueled by a fact-finding tour that he underwent in his first year on the job, meeting with 25 franchise owners or ownership groups as he began to get his feet under him as the head of the union. Some of it was fueled by media accounts of that tour — including one report in The Athletic, which showcased Howell meeting with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, in which Jones brought along several generations of his family as a show of respect for the new union head.
As one source with union ties framed it, 'If Jerry [Jones] is rolling out the red carpet and loving up your union leader with introductions to his whole family, it's not out of the kindness of his heart. It's the first move of a [labor] negotiation that hasn't started yet.'
While that was a small matter of perception, it was one of a handful of instances where some in the union wondered where Howell wanted to take his relationship with his NFL counterparts and how he'd ultimately get there. At times, there were complaints about a lack of clarity in the NFLPA's mission, with some union sources recounting Howell talking about 'having a North Star' as an organization, but also not fully understanding what the union head's 'North Star' had become.
'Lloyd doesn't like friction,' one source said.
'We drifted a bit as a union,' another added. 'It went too far.'
Is JC Tretter next to go in NFLPA?
Interestingly, all of this was an undercurrent before the past 10 days of reporting, which then added multiple red-flag questions on top of the fading (or at least changing) identity of a union. Now the NFLPA's players — from the 10-person executive committee to the 32-player board of representatives to the thousands of player members — have arrived at a pivot point. It's a nexus of questions about what went wrong with Howell at the head of the shop after only two years, and what the players want to change moving forward.
That may have to begin with a decision on Tretter's fate. His hiring by Howell as the chief strategy officer was previously supported by the player leadership, who wanted to retain some continuity between themselves and the new executive director. It stands to reason that the same individuals who embraced continuity in the transition from Smith to Howell will continue to want it in the transition from Howell to whoever comes next. At the end of the day, Howell's red flags may not be construed as also being Tretter's red flags.
As one source put it, 'JC is not a bad person or a bad actor. His intentions are in fact pure and I think he wants to do what is best for the players.'
That priority — what's best for the players — will be at the top of a list of questions that's just now being strung together. For the second time in two years, it will have to be answered by diving into yet another election process while simultaneously sorting out what went so wrong with the last one.
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