Just as with his reporting on Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson, the release by Meadowlark Media host Pablo Torre of a previously concealed arbitration ruling on the NFL Players’ Association’s complaint regarding NFL owner collusion is leading to significant ripple effects throughout the league.
This week, ESPN added three major new wrinkles to the story. The first was that there was an official agreement between the league and union leadership to intentionally withhold the ruling. The next is that since Torre made the ruling public through his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, the union has chosen to appeal it, six months after it originally was sent to league and union officials. The other is that NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. works with an investment firm that is working to invest in a team.
In an appearance onThe Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Thursday, commenting on these new details, Torre appeared confident that the revelations from the ruling he published and covered on his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, would continue to spur change around the NFL. And, Torre added, he believes that change could come near or at the top of both organizations.
Torre predicted that Howell would lose his job and expressed that the union ought to put pressure on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as well.
“[Hiding the ruling] is a breach of, frankly, fiduciary duty,” Torre said Thursday.
“You are a union. Your job, in a legal, professional, ethical sense, is to represent your constituents. Your players. And here you have one example … of self-interest personally, overriding collective self-interest. So this is unfortunately something that unions in America and particularly this one, the NFL, have been battling for decades. But in this case, you have it so crystal-clear, 4K-quality documented, that I think if you’re a player … who signed a new deal in 2021 when all this stuff was happening … they should be contemplating, what is our legal recourse?”
While the six months since the arbitrator issued the ruling have seen Howell and union leadership appear to have stubbornly hidden the opinion from the players’ view, now reporting from Torre and ESPN has, according to Torre, “pushed the NFLPA to behave, finally, like a union again.” Still, because of the extent to which it dragged its feet amid legitimate findings of potential collusion by Goodell and team owners, Torre doesn’t “see any ground for this regime to stand on.”
The arbitrator did not find legal grounds for a labor violation on the part of the NFL. But the ruling did side with the players, indicating that collusive actions were taking place regarding contracts for players such as Kyler Murray and Justin Herbert. They just did not, in the arbitrator’s view, meet the standard for punishments against the league.
Hiding this information while players continue to negotiate new contracts runs counter to the purpose of a union and the job of an executive director like Howell.
“I think inevitably, there will be a change in leadership at the NFLPA,” Torre said. “I think that the smoke is too obvious.”
Torre clarified previous comments on the Le Batard Show that his work is being closely followed. Far from a humblebrag, Torre believes this is evidence that people in high places are wondering whether the dam will break. The union’s appeal could be a step in that direction, even if Torre is unsure whether Howell will be the man to oversee the process.
In the furthest reaches of the imagination, Torre even wonders whether there could be momentum toward Goodell’s exit.
“If I was running the union and I got this ruling in which Roger Goodell was caught saying this stuff in coordination with the owners … I would be calling for Roger Goodell’s job,” Torre said. “Now, will that happen in real time? I would doubt that. But that is actively what the leverage that the union might have had here is. They could have gone to Capitol Hill, they could have called for hearings, they could have made an enormous public display of, ‘Look at what we’re dealing with, heading into our next CBA.'”
Since leading the NFL out of crises related to brain injuries, domestic violence, and player protests in the 2010s, Goodell has seemingly become very popular among owners. The commissioner’s contract ends next year, but recent reports suggest owners are expected to give him an extension soon. This would allow the 66-year-old to negotiate the league’s next broadcast rights package before developing an off-ramp into retirement.
We are a long way from the commissioner being ousted, but Torre’s reporting has exposed what should have been a massive story in January. The fallout is just beginning.