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DeMaurice Smith re-elected as head of NFL Players Association

By Stanford Crissey

Jan 29, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; (editors note: caption correction) NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith speaks during a press conference at Phoenix Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 29, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; (editors note: caption correction) NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith speaks during a press conference at Phoenix Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports /
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NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith earns another three-year term

DeMaurice Smith, the head of the NFL Players Association, has been elected to another three-year term.

Smith has been executive director of the NFLPA since 2009.

Smith won over a ballot of eight other candidates, including former NFL players Jason Belser, Sean Gilbert and Robert Griffith, as well as James Acho, Arthur McAfee, Rob London, Andrew Smith and John Stufflebeem, who emerged as Smith’s closest competition.

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“As a union, it is your duty to decide who should and will lead,” Smith told the board of player reps. “There will always be those who will sacrifice their dignity in a race to the bottom so that they can climb over others to get to the top. I will not join them, and no human should.”

NFLPA President Eric Winston said of Smith’s re-election: “We look forward to continue working with DeMaurice Smith to make our union stronger.”

The initial vote totals were not announced by the union. The Bills did not send a representative, so Smith needed (and got) 16 votes to win.

USA Today’s Tom Pelissero tweeted that the players’ union held a re-vote to show solidarity after Smith won the first election:

Smith is perhaps best known for his part in the 2011 lockout, a pointless months-long ordeal in which a bunch of rich people fought over how to split a bunch of money, then just went back to the way things were before any games could be missed.

The election process featured an overstuffed ballot (there were nine candidates; there have been three in the last two elections combined), sometimes heated dialogue and (as usual) some odd decisions from the NFL:

Yet clearly the players are happy with Smith and the status quo, or at least prefer it over what the other candidates were promising. Smith reportedly earned points among the players for his handling of the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson situations this year.

So the players voted for, and got, three more years of the same. The next NFLPA election comes in 2018.

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