DeMaurice Smith's Future as NFLPA Executive Director Reportedly In Jeopardy

NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith reportedly faces a vote from the union's 32 team representatives on Friday to determine whether he'll remain in the position.

ESPN's Dan Graziano reported Wednesday that Smith failed to receive unanimous approval from the NFLPA's 14-member executive committee, which moves the vote to the team reps. He needs at least 22 of the 32 votes to remain in the role.

If he receives between 16 and 21 votes, he'll be allowed to run for reelection but will face competition from candidates selected by a search firm ahead of a March election, per Graziano.

Smith, 57, has held the executive director position since March 2009. He was re-elected in 2012 and 2015, and then he received a 14-0 vote to retain the role without a need for a final vote in 2017.

"The union centered on player leadership. I am proud of their commitment, humbled by their trust in me and honored to serve," Smith said after he received the unanimous support of the executive committee in 2017, which put him in position to lead the union's negotiations for the collective bargaining agreement.

In March 2020, the NFL and the Players Association signed a new CBA through 2030 after players ratified the agreement by a narrow margin (1,019-959).

Although the agreement ensured a decade of labor peace just days before COVID-19 began to shut down sports around the world, it also created opposition to Smith as executive director.

Graziano reported Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Richard Sherman was among the players who was "vocally opposed to the way the last collective bargaining agreement was handled and had expressed dissatisfaction" with Smith and the other union leadership.

Several players expressed their belief the players should have held out for further concessions from team owners and are now "having success convincing others it's time for a change of leadership" within the union, according to Graziano.

One of the key sticking points of the deal from the players' perspective was the addition of a 17th regular-season game, which was implemented for the first time for the 2021 season.

Smith argued the NFL's teams were insistent on adding another game in order to finalize a deal without the threat of a looming holdout, and he noted the concessions given to the union in return for a longer schedule were equal to an estimated $3.5 billion over the 10-year contract.

"Yeah, I get that. And I think that no player would want to play an extra game, and that's why it's been such a long tortured process of talking about it," he said. "But that's a conversation I had with every team that the league was conditioning an early deal on the 17th game, and that was a part of the package for an early deal."

Smith hasn't stated whether he'll run a re-election campaign if he doesn't receive the 22 votes necessary from the player representatives Friday.