10 hours ago
Here's a name to watch for NFLPA executive director: Darrelle Revis
The NFL Players Association has had a rocky ride in recent weeks. To the undoubted delight of the 32 owners who will eventually be trying to get them to take a deal that will be even better than the current one is for management.
The union has hired David White to serve as interim executive director. Because he tried to get the non-interim job in 2023, he presumably would like to be the pick.
There should be other candidates, especially since White was chosen as a finalist by a process that was proven to be a complete failure. We previously mentioned former Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy as a potentially ideal choice, given that he knows what the owners want and how they go about getting it. We've heard nothing to suggest he'd be interested.
There's someone else who, as we hear it, could be interested. And he knows a thing or two about taking a stand to get what he deserves.
Hall of Fame cornerback Darrelle Revis.
Many have said the NFLPA needs a former player to run the union, like Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw did for 28 years. Another former player made an aggressive push for the job a decade ago, when Sean Gilbert tried to unseat DeMaurice Smith.
Gilbert, who also happens to be the uncle of Darrelle Revis, announced his candidacy through the publication of a short but compelling book. The $29 Million 'Tip": How Roger Goodell Earned His Big Payday spent less time criticizing Smith and more time praising the league (in backhanded fashion) for devising a multifaceted plan that got the owners to set aside their differences (Upshaw, as Gilbert explains, did a great job of sowing owner division) and to come together and squeeze the players to accept a 10-year Collective Bargaining Agreement that has helped fuel unprecedented team profits and, in turn, soaring franchise values.
I re-read Gilbert's book on Sunday, after catching wind of the possibility that Revis could be persuaded to pursue the job. Gilbert explains perfectly the basic fact that it's not a partnership between the league and the players. That the system has been rigged to encourage teams to prefer younger, cheaper players, to milk the best years of a player's career at low cost, to keep the best players from becoming free agents and driving up the market for everyone, and to perpetuate the reality that fans and media line up not behind the players but behind the owners.
How can it be a true partnership when the owners know what the players make and the players don't know what the owners make? How can it be a true partnership when the players have no say in how the broader business is run? How can it be a true partnership when, for example, the NFL receives 10-percent equity in ESPN and the players get nothing?
Fans (and too many in the media) resent the players for 'doing well.' They should be doing well. The sport generates massive interest and revenue. The players are the stars of the most popular show on television.
But the players have short, finite careers. They're pieces in a machine that are inevitably replaced with newer, cheaper pieces. They have limited opportunities to get paid, while the owners have years, decades, and generations to keep rolling in the dough.
Cozying up to the owners won't restore balance. Fighting good, smart battles will.
That will require a leader who will use every tool to build leverage and to use it. A finding that the Management Council urged teams to collude on fully-guaranteed contracts wouldn't be hidden as a way to curry favor. It would become a hammer.
And, yes, at some point the players will need to be willing to stand toe to toe with owners who wouldn't think twice about shutting the sport down for an entire season in order to get what they want. But players won't endure work stoppages because: (1) they want to play football; and (2) they want to be paid during their limited prime football-playing years.
They need to have a plan, as detailed and strategic as the NFL's plan. If the players strike, the owners will find replacements. Well, maybe the players should have an arrangement in place to stage their own games, with ticket sales and a broadcasting deal.
We have no idea whether Revis or any other NFLPA executive director could pull that off, or whether they would even try. The point is that the players need to realize that, since it's not a true partnership, they need to treat it that way. In every way — from bargaining to litigation to P.R. efforts to everything else that goes along with developing and utilizing the expertise needed to turn union dues not into strip-club expense reports but a business model that will help the players get more for what they give to the game.
Gilbert's book is a good starting point. If the union would be interested in someone like Revis, that book would need to be updated to reflect the current state of the relationship.
The owners want 18 regular-season games. They want 16 international games per year. They apparently want to reduce the share of the ever-growing pie that the players receive.
The players need to figure out what they want. They need to figure out how to get it. Revis was able to do that for himself, in multiple negotiations during his career. Like Gilbert, Revis was willing to withhold services to receive what he deserved.
The NFLPA's current player leadership needs to realize the current plan is failing. The rank and file need to demand more. We don't know whether that will happen.
If/when it does, they could do a lot worse than considering a Hall of Fame player who has shown he has the will to stand up to a group of owners who routinely and repeatedly flex their muscles against players who have far more power than they realize.
