There’s an irony to the finger-pointing in the aftermath of the failed tenure of NFL Players Association executive director Lloyd Howell.
During the process that resulted in Howell being hired, the union was ridiculously secretive. No one knew who the candidates were, including the dues-paying members of the union. The board of player representatives, who had the power to vote on the next executive director, didn’t know until they showed up for the meeting.
Now that Lloyd’s two-year stint with the union has gone as well as Thurston’s three-hour tour on the Minnow, those who refused to say anything about the process are saying plenty.
It started on Sunday afternoon, with the surprise resignation of former NFLPA president and then-NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter via a lengthy interview with Jonathan Jones of CBSSports.com. From the article: “For the first time, Tretter now reveals that Howell was not the executive committee’s top choice. In a straw poll conducted prior to the candidates being presented, the committee voted 10-1 in favor of [David] White over Howell. Members of the committee did not share their preference with the board.”
It’s the “first time” it was revealed because Tretter previously refused to reveal anything. Now that the mop is out for the cleanup on Aisle Howell, Tretter’s revelation has a distinct “don’t blame me” vibe to it.
And there’s more. Tretter also told Jones that Tretter wasn’t the one from the executive committee who voted for Howell. Tretter said he preferred White, because White had labor experience. Howell had none.
“So the idea that I was jamming anybody through was false,” Tretter said.
Making the 10-1 issue even more strange is the fact that, hours after Tretter’s on-the-record quotes emerged, the Washington Post reported the same facts as if they were previously unknown, attributing the information to unnamed sources. But Tretter had already said it with his name on it; that fact wasn’t mentioned in the lengthy item from the Post.
Regardless, here’s the message from Tretter and whoever told the same information to the Post: Don’t blame the executive committee for Howell. We wanted the other guy, but the voters never asked for our opinion.
That point was underscored by an “unnamed union source” to Jones and sprinkled into the Tretter interview: “Maybe [the executive committee] should have given them a recommendation instead of giving the board a binder of information that they won’t read, while they golf and drink, to make a decision.”
It’s hard not to wonder whether the unnamed union source is the same guy who was on the record throughout the article. Routinely, people who are being interviewed will say that certain things are off the record. If those off-the-record comments make it into the final article, they get attributed to an unnamed source.
Whether it was or wasn’t Tretter, the broader points are these: (1) Tretter seems to be trying to distance himself from the hiring of Howell; and (2) Tretter seems to be blaming the player representatives for picking the wrong guy.
There’s one last point to make. Given the possibility if not likelihood that Howell resigned because he knew ESPN was about to report on the strip-club expense-report misadventure, it’s also possible that Tretter caught wind that the Post would be dropping something about Howell’s hiring on Sunday night or Monday morning. Tretter possibly decided to force the issue by preemptively handing to Jones the “10-1" wrinkle that became the first topic of the Post story — and which has been the subject of at least five tweets from the reporter who wrote it.
To put it as simply as possible, if Tretter knew the Post would be reporting that the executive committee overwhelmingly supported White over Howell and that Tretter, as NFLPA president at the time, didn’t convey that information to the players who voted, Tretter may have concluded that he had no chance of becoming the interim executive director.
Which made it the perfect time to declare victory and retreat. After, of course, scooping the Post by handing the biggest news nugget in its story to CBS.
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