Lloyd Howell as NFLPA executive director

The managing director of NFL Players Association, Lloyd Howell Jr., resigned on Thursday evening and ended his competitive two -year term as a leader of the union.

“It is clear that my leadership has become a distraction on the important work that NFLPA drives ahead every day,” said Howell, 59, in a statement published by the union. “For this reason, I informed the NFPA Executive Committee that I immediately effective as the executive director of the Board of NFL player.

Sources informed ESPN that Howell had resigned and some members of the NFPA 10-member executive committee surprised, which had selected the former Chief Financial Officer of Boooz Allen Hamilton as a finalist for the top job after a 16-month search was enveloped in secrecy.

On Wednesday evening, two board members Howell's leadership have a sounding confirmation for the leadership in an interview with ESPN.

“We felt good in relation to the process,” said one of them. “We are 100 percent behind Lloyd.”

And on Sunday, the Exekutive Committee Howell supported Wowell in a message sent to the membership and said that it “had a deliberate process to carefully assess the problems raised and not to hurry up to a judgment”.

The resignation of Howell, an unlikely choice for union chief after almost 30 years in the technology consulting company Booz Allen, found out after several reports from ESPN and the Podcast Pablo Torre.

In May, ESPN reported that the FBI examines the financial transactions of the NFLPA and MLB Players Association in connection with a group license company of multibillions, OneTeam Partners. According to the sources, the report triggered the NFLPA that Ronald C. make the law firm Wilmer Hale hired in order to check howell the activities of Howell as an executive director. The FBI examination, which is carried out in conjunction with the US law firm in Brooklyn, continues, according to sources.

Last week, ESPN reported that Howell works as a paid part-time consultant of the Carlyle Group, one of the private equity companies approved by the league who have NFL teams. Howell was asked by a lawyer to the union to withdraw for reasons of conflicting interests, said a source, but another source said that he would do his “Due Diligence”. He remains as a consultant of the Carlyle Group.

ESPN also reported last week that Howell made a confidentiality agreement with the NFL six months ago, in which the details of an arbitration decision in January were hidden by players, including the fact that the league executives asked the team owners to reduce a guaranteed playback. The 61-page judgment was published on June 24th in the “Pablo Torre” podcast.

At least a dozen representatives of the players and members of the Executive Committee, which ESPN rejected from rejection, and several sources say that the union asked the members not to speak to the media.

Sources reported Adam Schefter from ESPN that the Executive Committee is in contact with the membership of the players, and the board of Player representatives is expected to take the next steps as soon as possible to find out the next steps, which could include the naming of an interim -executive director.

Howell succeeded Demaurice Smith as head of NFLPA, which represents almost 2,000 professional football players. Smith was head of the Union from 2009 to 2023. The Union of Gene Upshaw was led before Smith.