DeMaurice Smith has been the executive director of the NFL Players Association since 2009. He succeeded Gene Upshaw after the legend passed away, having served in that role for decades beginning in 1983. Unsurprisingly, Smith hasn’t been quite as popular as his predecessor.
For those ready to see the union move on, however, that time is just on the horizon. According to Pro Football Talk, Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal is reporting that a new executive director is supposed to be selected by Thursday, June 29. So, in a few days, basically.
The only thing is nobody seems to know who is even in the running. Mike Florio writes that there is a “heavy favorite” for the job, according to Fischer’s report, but who that is, or who any of the other candidates are, is a complete mystery.
That evidently includes the bulk of the union, because the voting will be limited to the board of player representatives, a select group of team union reps who basically speak for the several hundreds players who make up the 32 teams in the NFL.
Smith’s tenure as executive director has been a series of trials, peppered by far more losses than wins. His first term in the seat featured the lockout of 2011, with the union and the owners failing to come to terms on a Collective Bargaining Agreement extension in time.
That led to a season played under uncapped conditions, and the new CBA that followed is widely regarded as having lost a good deal of power for the players. A second negotiation that led to a new CBA in 2020 was arguably even worse, and included the addition of a 17th regular season game, previously regarded as a dead end.
The thing is, there is no compelling reason to believe that his successor will do any better. The fundamental problem with the players union is that the average career is only a couple of years. The vast majority of union members rightfully focus on more immediate priorities and things that will affect them rather than the millionaire stars who play for over a decade.
All that being said, it will be very interesting to see what an NFLPA in the post-Smith era might look like. Perhaps a stronger presence in leadership could make a difference. J.C. Tretter as the union president has been trying to regain some of the union’s power.
The recent addition of the team report card seemed to be received well, and may have begun to influence some teams to make some changes. But if we’re being honest, the strength of the union is always going to be judged primarily by how they fare during CBA negotiations. The next executive director may not even be in office by the time that comes up again.
