New updates to NFLPA conspiracy lawsuits against the NFL
The NFLPA is suing the outcome of a conspiracy lawsuit against the NFL. But the union initially seemed to fill it up.
The NFL Players Association will need new leaders.
Lloyd Howell Jr., executive director of the NFLPA, announced his resignation Thursday evening.
“It is clear that my leadership has been a distraction for the important work that the NFLPA moves forward every day, and therefore I have notified the NFLPA Executive Committee that it is coming into effect immediately as the NFLPA executive director and chair of the board of directors of NFL players,” Howell said in a statement. “We hope this will allow the NFLPA to focus on its player members ahead of the upcoming season.”
The message was also sent by the Executive Committee to NFLPA membership and obtained by USA Today Sports. Read:
“Tonight, Lloyd Howell informed us that he has resigned as the union’s executive director. We accept his resignation and appreciate his services. The board will hold a meeting as soon as possible as possible and contact our members immediately.”
Howell was under intense scrutiny in recent and in weeks following the release of a 61-page arbitration report on the “Pablo Torre Found” podcast.
In January, independent arbitrator Christopher Dronney dismissed the complaints raised by the NFLPA and determined that there was no sufficient evidence of conspiracy by the NFL owners. However, his report included the finding that the NFL would encourage owners to “encourage them to reduce their guarantees in future contracts at the March 2022 annual meeting.”
ESPN had reported that the NFL and NFLPA had put forward a “unusual non-disclosure agreement” to keep the findings of the arbitration report confidential.
“The union purposefully blocked important information regarding the operation of the NFL by agreeing to a non-disclosure agreement,” Attorney Peter Ginsberg said via ESPN. “The NFL and unions must not conspire to maintain important information from players.”
ESPN reports that Lloyd Howell has a side job with conflicts of interest
Further controversy over Howell emerged on July 10th.
ESPN reported that in addition to his job as the player union head, Howell worked as a “paid part-time consultant,” a private equity company that approved the NFL to seek ownership of minority members of the team. Howell had started consulting gigs a few months ago before beginning his role as executive director for the NFLPA.
He refused to step down from his role in the Carlisle Group after taking on an NFLPA job, ESPN reported.
“For union leaders, it would be an outrageous conflict to be interested in third parties that are consistent with the NFL,” former NFLPA lead Jim Quinn said via ESPN. “The relationship between labor and employer organizations is by definition hostile, and as a leader, you must be absolutely clear and clean so that you don’t even have to look at the conflict.”
A Carlyle Group representative told ESPN in a statement that Howell “we had no access to information about the NFL and the Carlyle process,” saying he was unaware of the federal demands.
USA Today Sports confirmed last month that the NFLPA hired law firm Wilmer Hale to consider Howell’s actions as the union’s executive director.
Lloyd Howell was involved in previous legal controversy
Prior to Howell’s election as the union’s new executive director, he served as Chief Financial Officer of technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton from 2016 to 2022.
In July 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had paid a $377 million settlement arising from a whistleblower lawsuit that allegedly Booz Allen was overcharging the federal government.
The Washington Post reported that whistleblowers notified top executives, including Howell, of overcharging issues for several months.
The NFLPA hired Howell as executive director just a month before the announcement of the Booz Allen settlement.
