Turns Out 'The Shield' Isn't Just a League Nickname

It’s both disappointing and understandable that revelations about the jackery between the National Football League and its Players Association haven’t taken hold or stoked greater outrage. Labor-management disputes between the rich and uber-rich often don’t move the needle unless it results in an interruption in service, and the June-July window is tailor-made for indifference toward tackle football off-field issues. 

We’re almost a month past the initial report from professional busybody Pablo Torre that the league and the NFLPA agreed not to disclose details of an arbitration ruling on salaries to the membership, i.e., the players. The Players Association sought to determine whether the league and owners colluded to deny guaranteed contracts in the wake of the Cleveland Browns’ mega-deal with quarterback Deshaun Watson in 2022, a contract worth $230 million in fully guaranteed money. Collusion regarding contracts violates the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the PA and could result in compensation and damages to players who negotiated new deals. 

Arbitrator Chris Droney ruled last January that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove collusion in quarterback contracts, and most players were told simply that the PA had lost the case. However, in his final report, Droney concluded that the PA demonstrated that Commish Roger Goodell and league general counsel Jeff Pash urged owners to restrict guaranteed contracts and money going forward. That little detail wasn’t made public because of an unusual confidentiality agreement that PA management struck with league officials. 

It didn’t surface until Torre obtained the full 61-page report roughly six months later and released it, which smacked the gobs of many players and their attorneys and representatives and prompted questions such as: Who’s working for whom? Adding to the intrigue – stench, if you prefer – NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell Jr., is also a paid, part-time consultant for a private equity firm that’s been given the go-ahead to pursue minority ownership stakes in NFL teams. He is also on the board of a multi-billion-dollar licensing firm that works with athletes’ name, image and likeness concerns founded by the NFLPA and Major League Baseball Players Association and whose finances are currently under Federal investigation. 

Prior to joining the NFLPA, Howell was chief financial officer at Booz Allen Hamilton, the Bigfoot D.C.-area based intelligence and defense contractor known for its broad reach and recently for a $377 million settlement in 2023 for fraudulently billing the U.S. government over a decade. He was a board member of General Electric HealthCare and Moody’s Corporation and was a trustee at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater. In short, his background is neither in football locker rooms or sharp-elbowed labor law.

 All that said, NFLPA honchos were jazzed when he became the head guy in 2023, believing that his corporate connections and boardroom acumen fit present-day major league sports administration. Fast forward to Jan. 2025. After Howell’s brokered, incomplete debriefing of the arbitration ruling, he reportedly criticized his predecessor, DeMaurice Smith, for “wasting resources” on the complaint, which was originally filed in Oct. 2022. 

It’s curious, then, that after Torre’s public release of the report and subsequent reporting by ESPN and others that the NFLPA decided to appeal the ruling. No word on why the PA waited six months to appeal or what changed that suddenly made the legal battle worth continuing, though you might hazard a guess or two. 

Union busting has a long and undistinguished history here in the Republic dating back to the Industrial Revolution and the late 19th century, as corporate titans tried their damnedest to prevent radical changes such as eight-hour workdays and living wages and safer conditions. In 21st century America, management-labor disputes in professional sports are often viewed as a piefight between millionaires and billionaires. Since most folks don’t travel in those neighborhoods, they dismiss the conflicts as some gilded penthouse squabbles and want both sides to shut up and deliver the games. 

I’d argue that it’s the same struggle, simply on a different scale. The tactics are similar – public relations blitzes, intimidation, threats, lawsuits, strikes, lockouts. One helpful comparison to differentiate between the two sides is to remember that one million seconds is 11 days; one billion seconds is 31 years. Hardly a fair fight. Billionaires, with corporate backing and resources, have outsized leverage that even millionaire laborers cannot hope to counter without collective bargaining and legal protections. Factor in the reality that athletes have a limited work and earnings window – the average NFL career lasts 3.3 years, according to recent data – and it behooves them and their representatives not to go nuclear and thus risk their careers, since in the end they are replaceable and the league and owners can always outlast them. 

As well compensated as players are, the deck remains stacked in favor of management. When those whose job it is to advocate for labor agree to zip it when management deals from the bottom of the deck and occasionally palms the cards, well, others are watching to see how it’s done. Doesn’t bode well for most of us.