NFLPA Executive Director Resigns: Breaking Down the Union’s Scandal

The NFLPA has not been shown in a positive light these past few weeks. First, there was the 61-page arbitration document where the NFLPA accused the NFL of collusion that was kept under wraps by both the league and the union, which we covered in detail. Since then, Pablo Torre, former ESPN journalist and now with Dan Le Batard’s Meadowlark Media, and Mike Florio, founder of NBC Sports’ ProFootballTalk, have gone on the offensive in their investigative journalism, exposing Lloyd Howell, the now-former Executive Director of the NFLPA. Howell resigned from his position on Thursday evening, which has received national media attention from sports outlets. So, what happened that made him step down as executive director?

Questionable Circumstances Before Being Elected

The initial article posted to our website focused mainly on J.C. Tretter, the former two-term NFLPA president, now-retired offensive lineman, and current chief strategy officer for the union. Now that new facts have come to light, the microscope is focusing on Howell, who was selected to succeed DeMaurice Smith, who served as executive director from 2009-23. The NFLPA used the search firm Russell Reynolds Associates to find the finalists for the executive director position in 2023. The selection process was notable for how under wraps it was, with the voters reportedly not knowing who the candidates were until the day of voting. Nonetheless, Howell was elected despite not coming from the realm of either sports nor unions.

Cracks Start to Show in Howell’s Past

Before being elected executive director, Howell spent nearly three decades at Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor and consulting firm, where he spent his last years as chief financial officer and treasurer. Torre and Florio took a look at Howell’s past weeks ago on Torre’s podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” reporting that Booz Allen agreed to pay $377 million to settle a Justice Department lawsuit that alleged the company overcharged the United States government to help cover losses. The federal probe was publicly disclosed by Booz Allen in June 2017, almost one year after Howell became CFO. These concerns about Howell’s past were one of the reasons that Florio criticized the process of anonymously selecting the union’s executive director back in 2023.

Conflict of Interest Pours Gas Onto Howell’s Fire

Despite Torre and Florio’s reveal of the NFLPA’s internal issues, nothing really came out of it. National media outlets didn’t report on it, and the union seemed to have everything in order with Tretter staying as CSO and Howell continuing as the ED. However, just two and a half weeks after Torre’s podcast, more dirty laundry came to light by way of ESPN. Don Van Natta, Jr. and Kalyn Kahler reported that Howell was working as a paid, part-time consultant for The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm approved by the NFL to seek minority ownership. According to the report, he joined the firm in March 2023, three months before he was elected as executive director. Torre and Florio did some digging on this report and even found that the NFLPA’s official X account edited out a clip of Howell saying that he said “I am an operating executive of The Carlyle Group” at a press conference for Super Bowl LIX.

Investigation Reveals More Skeletons in Howell’s Closet

In May, ESPN reported that the FBI had begun investigating the union’s financial dealings, which caused the union to hire Ronald C. Machen of law firm Wilmer Hale to review Howell's activities as the executive director. The investigation not only found out about Howell’s partnership with The Carlyle Group, but also that he faced a sexual discrimination and retaliation lawsuit in 2011 while he was a senior executive at Booz Allen. The intriguing part of the report is that different union members reportedly had different knowledge of Howell’s past. According to ESPN, two player representatives who voted for Howell said that they were surprised to learn of the lawsuit because they said when they met as a group in June 2023 to select between two candidates for executive director, the subject never came up. However, two other players who sat on the union’s executive committee that vetted Howell pushed back against those claims. "Full disclosures were made to everybody and questions were asked," said one of the executive committee members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The worst thing we could do was get the wrong guy, right? We need everybody to feel comfortable, and we aren't going to have something bite us in a year, or two, or three, or five. We can't have that happen. We obviously all decided we were okay with moving forward [with Howell's candidacy] or we would have shut it down.”

Revelation of Charging Union for Strip Club Causes Resignation

As if all the other questions about his character weren’t enough, ESPN reported that Howell charged the union for two visits to strip clubs. According to the report, in November 2023, Howell charged the union $738.82 for a car service that took him from Fort Lauderdale International Airport to Tootsie’s Cabaret, a strip club in Miami, Florida. At this year’s NFLPA summit in late February, Howell accompanied the employees to the Magic City strip club in Atlanta, Georgia, charging the union $2,426, which included cash withdrawals ranging from $200-$525 from the club’s ATM. According to the expense report, the purpose of the strip club outing was: “Player Engagement Event to support & grow our Union.” ESPN reached out to Bob Stropp, a veteran labor lawyer who used to be the general counsel of the United Mine Workers of America, and an unnamed former NFLPA employee, who both had strong words about Howell’s antics. “That’s pretty horrible,” said Stropp. “That’s unbelievable. I don’t know how you get around that. It’s hard to believe that anyone would be that stupid.” “I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think that is an optically good scenario,” said the former union employee. After that report came out, Howell resigned from his position, citing that his “leadership has become a distraction to the important work the NFLPA advances every day.”