NFL Players Inc. president Matt Curtin emerges as potential NFLPA interim executive director

There’s at least one more potential candidate to become the interim executive director of the NFL Players Association.

Earlier today, we mentioned that NFL Players, Inc. president Matt Curtin’s name has emerged in the rumor mill, mainly as a candidate possibly being pushed by NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter as a potential compromise to Tretter and NFLPA chief player officer Don Davis, reportedly the two leading candidates.

Per multiple sources, Curtin has spoken at least once this weekend to the NFLPA executive committee.

Given the primary fire that the executive committee is currently trying to extinguish, this revelation creates a common-sense impression that Curtin is a candidate for the interim executive director position.

Of course, Curtin (like Tretter) has ties to Howell. The “who doesn’t want to see more football?” profile of Howell, published last July by TheAthletic.com, mentioned that Curtin “formed a business relationship with Howell during a 25-year span as vice president of J.P. Morgan and then managing director of Bank of America.” In March 2024, Curtin “followed” Howell to the NFLPA.

Another name we’ve heard is NFLPA associate general counsel Chris Fawal.

The threshold question for the NFLPA board of player representatives is whether to embrace, or to shun, anyone who was part of the Howell regime. Regardless, it makes sense to at least consider candidates with no current ties to the union. At this point, it’s not clear whether outsiders are being considered.

Of course, that raises another very important question. Who is creating the menu of candidates?

While the hire is interim and not permanent, the lack of transparency has clear parallels to the process that resulted in the hiring of Howell. And since that went so well, why not dust off that same top-secret playbook?

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