In June 2023, a less-than-ideal vetting process resulted in Lloyd Howell becoming the next executive director of the NFL Players Association. With Howell out, the NFLPA opted to hire the guy who finished second to Howell.
Out of two finalists.
David White has joined the NFLPA as the interim executive director. It’s unknown when, or if, the board of player representatives became aware White was a candidate before it was time to cast ballots. Common sense suggests that the players at large didn’t know that White or anyone else was up for the job, since someone would have leaked it to a reporter.
Given the flaws in the research that resulted in Howell being one of two finalists for the job in 2023, it’s fair to wonder whether the exploration into White’s background had similar flaws.
Even the most cursory review would have found a June 11, 2015 article on Deadline.com that began with this paragraph: “SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director David White recently misled the union’s board of directors about the union’s attempt to whitewash An Open Secret, director Amy Berg’s explosive new documentary about the sexual abuse of child actors in Hollywood. He also misled the board about the union’s threat to sue her and the film’s producers.”
The issue arose from a Deadline.com report that SAG-AFTRA has threatened to sue Amy Berg unless she removed “all references” to the union from the film. The union had said in a statement that it did not threaten to sue Berg, and that it didn’t try to suppress information regarding it.
Berg disagreed, telling Deadline.com this: “I felt that SAG-AFTRA used legal threats to try to sanitize the film.” She also provided a copy of the letter from SAG-AFTRA’s outside counsel — a copy of which had been sent to White.
First question. Did the NFLPA executive committee and/or the board of player representatives know about this issue in 2023?
Second question: Did they discuss it before they hired White on Sunday?
Third question: If they knew about it, why was he not disqualified?
Last week, Pablo Torre reported in our third collaboration that White resigned from SAG-AFTRA in 2021, and that he thereafter was rumored to be in the running to lead the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. That’s the equivalent, as Pablo said, of someone from the NFLPA going to work for the NFL.
So, basically, if White isn’t offered the permanent executive director job after serving as interim executive director, will he promptly offer his services (and any union secrets) to the NFL?
Last week, Bengals center and NFLPA executive committee member Ted Karras said this, via ESPN.com: “Anyone in a leadership role within our union needs to live above reproach.”
Someone needs to ask Karras, the rest of the executive committee, and any player rep who voted for the runner up to Lloyd Howell whether misleading a union’s board of directors counts as living above reproach.
The problem, of course, is that the current culture at the top of the NFLPA favors circling the wagons over dealing with inconvenient truths. It’s a manifestation of the aspect of human nature that keeps us from admitting our own mistakes (e.g., Jon Voight’s car).
Consider this recent quote from Commanders running back Austin Ekeler, regarding the disastrous search that resulted in the hiring of Lloyd Howell: “I think it was a good process. There were a few issues that wound up biting us that we couldn’t have foreseen at the time, but I like where we’re at.”
Believing it was a good process is the first step toward dusting off that process and making the guy who came in second the new boss. Dismissing flaws they knew or should have known about becomes step two.
Ignoring outside input from pencil-necked geeks (like me) is step three. Keeping it all a secret is step four.
Step five could be the inevitable resignation of White, after Pablo Torre takes an even deeper dive into the situation.
