Wetzel: Why the NFLPA mess should matter to football fans

NFL Players Association executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. was paid $3.4 million last year to have one of the most powerful jobs in all of sports — overseeing a 2,400-member strong labor union with assets of over $1 billion.

It apparently wasn’t enough money — or enough work.

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Howell also maintained an outside part-time consulting job with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm that, coincidentally we are sure, holds league approval to seek minority ownership in NFL franchises, as ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler first reported Thursday.

“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,” Jim Quinn, who spent 25 years as the union’s outside counsel, told ESPN, noting previous executive directors never had any side gigs, let alone one waving a red flag like this.

That alone should separate Howell from his NFLPA job; at least if membership cares who is representing them.

It’s not like Howell, on the job since June 2023, has done much to inspire that he is on the side of the players.

As Van Natta and Kahler reported Wednesday, the NFLPA previously entered into a confidentiality agreement with the NFL to bury a January arbitration ruling and thus keep pertinent information away from players, their agents and the public.

The 61-page ruling, from arbitrator Christopher Droney, first unearthed by the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, stemmed from a complaint that NFL owners colluded (namely against quarterbacks Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson) to avoid offering fully guaranteed contracts. This came in the wake of the Cleveland Browns giving Deshaun Watson a $230 million guaranteed deal in 2022, which rattled owners across the league.

Droney cleared the owners of collusion, but his ruling was full of intriguing details, from conversations inside owner executive meetings to text messages on the subject. Droney also noted that, “by a clear preponderance of the evidence,” commissioner Roger Goodell and the league’s general counsel, Jeff Pash, urged owners to restrict guaranteed contracts.

It’s the kind of ruling that a union would generally trumpet to the heavens — a valuable bit of information for players to know what they are dealing with and the public to consider heading into the next collective bargaining agreement.

That’s the union’s job … to represent the interest of the players.

Instead, almost no one knew about it.

Why the NFLPA would hide such a thing is unknown or at least limited to speculation. It happened though. It wasn’t until two weeks after the Torre podcast — and six months after the initial ruling — that the union filed an appeal. Why the delay?

NFL players should be outraged by all of the above: the inexplicable confidentiality deal with the league, the executive director’s side hustle, the general confusion.

For every Deshaun Watson and his megabucks deal, there are 100 short-timers trying to get whatever they can, while they can.

If the NFLPA is willing to make a confidentiality deal on an arbitration hearing involving likely future Hall of Famers such as Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson, then what would they do to the rank-and-file?

Fans shouldn’t be too happy, either. While there isn’t going to be some groundswell of sympathy for well-compensated players, it behooves the competitive balance of the NFL to have strong ownership and strong labor.

If there were collusion to suppress salaries or limit guaranteed money, then it could impact nearly every team.

Consider one of the more eye-popping details from the arbitration ruling. In March 2023, Jackson, who was just 26 at the time and had already won a MVP with the Baltimore Ravens, was hit with a “non-exclusive franchise tag.” That meant he was free to negotiate and sign an offer sheet with other teams (the Ravens could later match).

Yet, not a single club reached out to Jackson. He wound up re-signing with the Ravens and went on to win another MVP award in 2023.

There are plenty of reasons to not pursue Jackson — playing style, cost, injury history — which makes proving collusion nearly impossible.

Still, if you’re a fan of a quarterback-poor team the past couple of years, just know your club coincidentally couldn’t be bothered to make a phone call to chat with an absolute electric talent.

Whose side were Howell and others at the NFLPA on?

That such a question can even be asked is enough for a full accounting of what happened.

If it results in a clean sweep of union leadership, well, we know at least one person already has a consulting job he can lean back on.