With executive director Lloyd Howell abruptly out, the NFL Players Association needs to replace him. It soon will.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, the NFLPA board of player representatives “is expected to vote” on a new interim executive director before the widespread launch of training camps, on Tuesday.
The news comes a day after Dianna Russini of TheAthletic.com reported that it’s currently a two-man race: JC Tretter and Don Davis. (Her tweet caused confusion because it omitted the word “interim.” But it’s obviously an interim hire.)
Because the NFLPA Constitution doesn’t contain a procedure for selecting an interim executive director, the NFLPA apparently has come up with a plan for proceeding. It’s unclear how the voting will work — especially if no one gets a majority of the votes on the first ballot.
Some have suggested that the NFLPA should take its time in hiring an interim executive director, given that too many of the current options are too close to Howell. There’s a belief that the best play would be to find someone from the outside to step in and stabilize the situation while the search for a full-time, non-interim executive director proceeds.
My own reaction to that possibility? Good freakin’ luck. How will the NFLPA find someone good who’ll shut down his or her life temporarily in an effort to repair the damage done by the Howell regime and to lay the foundation for someone else to take over?
If, as it appears, the interim executive director will be someone who worked for the NFLPA while Howell did, it will be important to move very quickly to find the next executive director — and to make it clear that the interim executive director will not be a candidate and, ideally, will have no role in the selection of his or her replacement.
Frankly, the best approach for the NFLPA could be to eventually blow up current union management, with the exception of anyone who realized that Howell was a problem and sounded the alarm about it internally.
