The rise and fall of Lloyd Howell at the NFLPA

When the player representatives of the 32 NFL teams gathered at the Salamander Resort and Spa in Middleburg, Virginia, in 2023 for the two-day meeting at which they would elect a new executive director of the NFL Players Association, they didn’t know much about the results of the search process they had authorized the union’s executive committee to oversee.

They didn’t know that the executive committee’s finalists for the NFLPA’s top job were Lloyd Howell, the former chief financial officer of consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and David P. White, the former national executive director and chief negotiator for the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). They didn’t know what the vetting process conducted by search firm Russell Reynolds Associates and the background report compiled by due diligence firm Mintz Group had — and had not — found about Howell.

And they didn’t know that the players on the executive committee had voted, 10-1, to recommend White to the player reps as the union’s next executive director if they were asked to make a recommendation.

“We held an internal vote before that meeting,” a player who was on the executive committee during the search said Sunday. “… It was never communicated [to the board of player reps]. They made up their own mind. That’s what we wanted.”

The player reps voted the following day via a single confidential, written ballot to elect Howell to succeed DeMaurice Smith. That June 28, 2023, decision turned out to be ill-fated. Howell resigned Thursday, a little more than two years into his term, amid a string of controversies that brought intense scrutiny and spurred unrest among some players and agents.

Some on the players’ side are unhappy about the process that led to Howell’s election, saying it lacked transparency and failed to make the player representatives aware of warning signs regarding Howell’s candidacy before they voted. But as the NFLPA works to elect an interim executive director, perhaps by Monday, and faces the prospect of launching a search for Howell’s permanent successor, those involved in the process that led to Howell’s election defend it. They say Russell Reynolds conducted a by-the-book search and the executive committee fulfilled its goals to avoid media leaks and put qualified finalists in front of the player reps for their vote, even if the outcome of Howell’s tenure was calamitous.

According to multiple people familiar with the process, Howell’s consulting position at the Carlyle Group and his involvement in a sexual discrimination and retaliation lawsuit in 2011 while at Booz Allen were discussed by the players before his election. There was no discussion, those people said, about Howell reportedly being questioned and reprimanded by Booz Allen for a 2015 incident in which he and a colleague visited a strip club in New York and the colleague sought reimbursement on an expense report.

“That was missed,” the player who was on the executive committee said. “That was not known.”

But of the overall process, the player said, “I would do it the same way.”

There has been increased scrutiny on Lloyd Howell, the executive director of the NFL Players Association. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Seeking leadership

The search has produced particularly sharp criticism of JC Tretter, then the NFLPA’s president as a recently retired player and more recently its chief strategy officer under Howell. One person on the players’ side of the sport said this weekend that Tretter “has an us-against-them mentality” that produced a flawed search. Some observers have suggested Tretter tilted the 2023 election in Howell’s favor and was rewarded with his position in union leadership.

“I deny that theory,” the player who was on the executive committee said. Another person with direct knowledge of the search called that notion “outrageous.” They and others spoke with The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the search and the sensitivity of the issues following Howell’s resignation.

Tretter did not cast the one vote in favor of Howell in the executive committee’s June 2023 vote on the recommendation that was not delivered, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That person and the player who was on the executive committee confirmed the 10-1 vote in favor of White.

“We wanted [the player reps] to make up their own mind,” the player said, adding that the vote was taken about a week before the meeting of the team-by-team player representatives. “We did that in case we were asked for our recommendation.”

The NFLPA hired Russell Reynolds in June 2022. The board of player reps had authorized the executive committee to conduct a search in which it brought two to four viable candidates for the consideration of the player representatives. The player reps agreed at the outset of the process that they would not have access to information about the candidates until the final voting meeting, two people familiar with the search said.

“They said, ‘We want a process that any Fortune 100 [company] or significant nonprofit would use.’ … They did not want to repeat the past, and they wanted to professionalize and have something that they could be proud of and stand behind,” a person directly involved in the search said.

The executive committee, in particular, did not want a repeat of the NFLPA’s 2009 search process, which was marked by rampant media leaks.

“The better we kept it quiet, the better we were able to get better candidates,” the player who was on the executive committee said. “I think we were successful at that.”

Russell Reynolds spoke with more than 150 people and presented 46 potential executive director prospects to the executive committee. Fifteen candidates were interviewed by the executive committee. The search firm remained in regular contact with the executive committee, with a weekly call every Monday night between November 2022 and June 2023.

The executive committee interviewed 12 candidates over Zoom, then cut its list to six and conducted in-person interviews with them in March 2023. When Russell Reynolds asked the executive committee if it wanted to refine the search in any way, the committee expressed an interest in candidates with strong business profiles. That led to Howell being contacted and added to the search, along with two other candidates. They were interviewed in person in April 2023, and the executive committee cut its list to four candidates.

Those four were informed of their status and asked to participate in psychometric testing, which included online testing and a multi-hour behavioral interview with a psychologist. They agreed to undergo a comprehensive background report by Mintz Group. The four candidates gave presentations to the executive committee in D.C., and each had a meal with the committee members. The executive committee chose Howell and White as the finalists for the June meeting of the player reps.

“The discrimination case was raised in the Mintz report and exhaustively discussed with the [executive committee],” the person directly involved in the search said, adding that the lawsuit also was discussed with the player reps at the late June meeting.

The player who was on the executive committee said: “We knew about that. Lloyd was open about that.”

Howell speaks ahead of Super Bowl LVIII in 2024. (Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports)

‘Lloyd won the day’

“It was a little back-and-forth,” the player said. “We wanted none. He wanted some number. Maybe it was three. Maybe it was five.”

ESPN reported Friday that Howell had charged the union for two visits to strip clubs. That included a charge of $738.82 for a car service in November 2023 that took him from the Fort Lauderdale airport to a Miami-area strip club, according to the report, and a visit by Howell and two union employees in February to an Atlanta strip club that led to $2,426 in charges that Howell instructed an employee to submit in expense reports. ESPN also reported on the 2015 strip club incident while Howell was at Booz Allen.

According to the person with direct knowledge of the search, Russell Reynolds asked the candidates’ references if there was anything potentially embarrassing to the candidate, to the NFLPA or to the search firm that the firm should know about. None of Howell’s references disclosed the reported 2015 strip club incident, the person said.

Russell Reynolds said in a statement Sunday that it “conducted an extensive search and vetting process for the NFLPA that adhered to [the firm’s] best practices in governance.” The firm said it “was fully transparent with the NFLPA about its findings for each candidate at every interval of the search process.”

The firm said it takes issue with any characterization that there was anything improper about one of its employees, Anamika Gupta, subsequently being hired by Howell as the NFLPA’s chief of staff. She also was a former Booz Allen employee.

“This individual was a stellar employee who excelled during her eight years at” Russell Reynolds, the firm said. “She neither knew Mr. Howell during her prior employment at Booz Allen Hamilton nor had any communication with him during the search process. Any suggestion to the contrary is reckless and categorically false.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks with Howell in Brazil last year. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)

Howell and JC Tretter take part in an NFLPA news conference. (Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports)

At the June meeting of player reps, the players were briefed and spent time with Howell and White. Russell Reynolds made presentations about the two candidates. Its organizational psychologist was on hand. The executive committee presented the issues that it wanted raised from the Mintz background report. That’s when the player reps were told about the sexual discrimination lawsuit involving Howell.

“Specific to Lloyd, the discrimination lawsuit was a major topic of discussion” with the player reps, the person directly involved in the search said.

The Carlyle Group issue was not a major topic of discussion with the player reps, that person said. The players again were warned about media leaks.

“Doors were closed,” the person with direct knowledge of the search said. “Phones were gone. ... There were ground rules set.”

The candidates made two-hour presentations and were made available to the player reps in smaller-group settings. They made final remarks before the vote on the meeting’s second day. According to the person involved in the search, the NFLPA hired a third-party auditor to conduct a confidential vote by written ballot. The auditor collected the player reps’ ballots and announced Howell as the winner without disclosing a vote count to the players.

“Lloyd won the day,” that person said. “He gave a very eloquent analysis of what he felt and he saw.”