NFL players deserve a leader, not a lightweight, who ferociously fights for their rights

New York Times

21 hours ago

The toughest person in professional football does not need to be the quarterback who takes a repeated pounding from the blind side, or the edge rusher paid to deliver those shots into the passer's ribs.
The toughest person in the toughest sport needs to run the National Football League Players Association.
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Why? It's pretty simple. NFL players must be protected like no other athlete or asset in the big business of sport. They play the most violent game at video-game speed, risking serious injury on every snap. And then as soon as the physical toll makes them a couple of steps slower, their teams barely thank them for the memories before showing them the door.
No, there can be absolutely no weakness in the leadership of these brave souls. Once again, the pain is fully guaranteed in the NFL even though the contracts are not.
That's why the NFLPA needs a fighter.
A heavyweight.
Someone who can go toe to toe with the commissioner, Roger Goodell, and the team owners who care first and foremost about the soaring valuations of their franchises, and who therefore can never be fully trusted to do the right thing by the only people who truly make the NFL great.
The players.
No fan has ever paid a nickel to see an owner or league official eat a catered lunch at room temperature behind the thick glass of a luxury suite. The players represent the single reason professional football is the modern-day national pastime and the entertainment spectacle that consistently produces the most-watched shows in America.
They are not part of the NFL. They are the NFL.
And they deserve so much more than what their union dealt them in the form of Lloyd Howell Jr., who apparently conducted more business in the VIP room of your local strip club than he did in boardrooms and locker rooms.
Calling Howell a lightweight would be an insult to lightweights worldwide. ESPN reported that an external investigation produced documents showing that Howell charged the union for visits to two strip clubs, including a car service bill for $738.82. The report also stated Howell and a colleague at his former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, ran up an exorbitant strip club bill that the colleague submitted for reimbursement while Howell was a defendant in a sexual discrimination and retaliation case.
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It's hard to believe a man with a master's degree from Harvard Business School could be a party to something so monumentally dumb.
It's even harder to believe that the NFLPA could elect someone with such dreadful judgment for a position that requires rock-solid conviction. Lloyd Howell was really the best that JC Tretter and others at the union could do when confronting ruthless billionaires who are always looking to run an end-around on the players?
On today's Athletic Football Show, @PabloTorre joined me to discuss his reporting on the NFL collusion case.
The most shocking details from the 61-page rulingWhy would the NFLPA bury this? What comes next for Lloyd Howell and the union?
Full show: https://t.co/vazJqKs1Um pic.twitter.com/8tyi76d85S
— Robert Mays (@robertmays) July 15, 2025
So the fourth executive director of the NFLPA had no choice but to resign after two years on the job. Before the strip club story, Howell had to go following disclosures of a clear conflict of interest (that union officials decided wasn't a clear conflict of interest) and a confidentiality agreement between the union and league to hide an arbitration agreement that included this ruling from the arbitrator:
'There is little question that the NFL Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged the 32 NFL Clubs to reduce guarantees in veterans' contracts at the March 2022 annual owners' meeting.'
That should've been game, set and match on the collusion front. Even though the arbitrator, Christopher Droney, somehow ruled that there was no smoking gun in evidence, why in the world would the union keep that information from its members?
And why did it take reporting from 'Pablo Torre Finds Out,' Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio, and ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler for players to learn that their bosses were drawing up a game plan to keep their wages as non-guaranteed as possible, and that their own representatives essentially helped the owners bury that, well, smoking gun?
And how many players were made aware that Howell had a paid role at a private equity firm that sought to purchase an ownership stake in NFL teams?
It's a helluva sitcom, though there's nothing remotely funny about it. Over the years, there's been no shortage of NFL players who thought their union was way too cozy with management, a frightening truth given their short average career span and the punishment they endure between the lines.
And speaking of Harvard, its medical school was part of a study published in September that showed one-third of the 2,000 former NFL players surveyed believe they have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which is caused by repeated trauma to the brain.
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This is what the sport does to the men who play it.
'I've had so many physical problems from football,' said Wesley Walker, the 70-year-old former Pro Bowl receiver for the New York Jets, 'and yet I know a lot of players who have it far worse than I do.'
Whenever stories inspire concerns about NFL player vulnerability, Walker is a reliable go-to source. He was tough enough to play this dangerous game for 13 years while legally blind in one eye, and yet in retirement an endless cycle of surgeries and physical issues sometimes left him praying and crying for help in the middle of the night.
Walker said he's seeing a neurologist for his concerns over possible Parkinson's symptoms, and that he's still dealing with the effects of spinal stenosis and nerve damage in his neck. He said he is losing function in his right hand, that he's experienced atrophy in his hands and legs, and that he wakes up with his knees inflamed and his feet numb.
A former alternate union rep for the Jets, Walker was unaware Friday morning of Howell's Thursday night resignation until a reporter informed him. Walker said he has long been concerned that the relationship between the NFL and NFLPA was too collaborative, and almost solely focused on current players. He has been consistently critical over the years of both sides for not doing nearly enough for the battered former players who helped build the league into a juggernaut.
'It's a shame that we've never been provided for,' Walker said. 'Our sacrifices are not even a thought.'
In the end, nobody in sports needs fully guaranteed salaries and more post-retirement care than NFL players. They must have a fearless advocate at the top of the union who has no agenda other than to serve and protect the members' interests.
Maybe Dr. Don Davis, the NFLPA's chief player officer, is that guy. Or maybe senior union leaders need to seek outside counsel on how to find the right executive director from some of the nation's best available leaders who also happen to be passionate football fans. Barack Obama? Condoleezza Rice?
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Either way, the NFL players could use a leader in the mold of Marvin Miller, who fought for steelworkers and baseball players with the same ferocity. Miller always loved it when a union guy on a New York City sanitation truck recognized him and gave him a shout-out for his work.
The NFLPA has to find a man or woman who inspires that kind of feeling among its members. For putting their bodies on the line on every given Sunday, NFL players deserve nothing less.