Behind the Bastards: It Could Happen Here Weekly 227 (April 11, 2026)
Episode Theme and Purpose
This episode of It Could Happen Here dives into the crisis and corruption at the core of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA)—the union for professional football players. Hosts Mia Wong and Charles McDonald (Yahoo Sports, Football 301) blend labor history and sports analysis to dissect how the NFLPA devolved from a fighting union into a bureaucracy dominated by pro-management leadership, with recent evidence of collusion cover-ups and leadership hand-picked by owners. The episode explores the wider implications for labor, the mechanics of union decay, and whether reform is possible, juxtaposed by the fact that this form of exploitation ties into broader American labor struggles.
Additionally, this Weekly features interviews with Molly Crabapple on socialist Jewish history (the Bund) and a special segment on misinformation about violence in Nigeria. The episode closes with its regular Executive Disorder news roundup—capturing war, politics, and the absurdity of life in America, 2026.
Main Sections and Key Discussion Points
1. NFL Players Association: From Fighters to Facilitators for Owners
Hosts: Mia Wong, Charles McDonald
Timestamps: [01:53]–[87:48]
The Early Days: A Militant, Player-led Union
- The NFLPA was once a real union: picketing, striking, making clear material demands for compensation and post-career benefits.
- [08:43] Focus on legendary leader Gene Upshaw, who was instrumental in player organizing but whose death in 2008 created a power vacuum.
- Charles McDonald [09:44]: “These teams are now being run by people who don't have football backgrounds... you can't doubt...Jerry Jones loves this sport and will be an advocate... even in ways that could be harmful.”
Decay Through Collusion and Concessions
- Post-Upshaw, owner greed increases: The 2006 CBA appears to award a 60:40 split of revenues in favor of players but actually includes major owner-friendly carve-outs (“revenue credits”).
- [13:19] Charles: “It was fake. It was fake, right?... They were taking well over a billion dollars before it got passed down onto the players.”
- Owners exercised their escape clause and began demanding huge rollbacks.
Lockouts, Giveaways, and Loss of Power ([15:03]–[22:11])
- 2010: No salary cap season; owners fine teams who “overspend,” showing iron control and collusion.
- 2011: Players are hit with a lockout and forced to accept a much worse deal: revenue drops below 50%, Goodell given unchecked power over discipline, and a devastating rookie wage scale.
- Charles [23:54]: “Another thing that changed was Roger Goodell has now like full autonomy over player punishments. I don't know why you gave that up either.”
- Veteran players ironically help implement policies (rookie wage scale) that end up hollowing out the league’s “middle class.”
Business Unionism, Secrecy, and the Rise of Anti-Worker Leadership
- [28:28] Mia: The union decays into a service organization. Information is tightly controlled; executive decisions happen in secrecy.
- [30:54] Charles: “They can't know. And I will say, like, part of what makes this difficult... there's so much murkiness.”
- Massive disconnect develops between membership and leadership—most players are kept in the dark about important decisions, including who’s running the union.
The Lloyd Howell Debacle: Anti-Labor Union Bosses ([35:59]–[40:47])
- Secretive process brings Lloyd Howell—a former Booz Allen executive with union-busting credentials and hedge fund ties—into the top role.
- [38:00] Charles: “Your executive director of the union works for hedge funds that are extracting value from these Teams. That should be disqualifying.”
- Howell uses union funds for personal gain, attends strip clubs, and is involved in alleged sexual harassment—what finally gets him fired is not his anti-player practices but misuse of money.
Recent Years: Collusion Cover-up and Controlled Elections ([44:48]–[87:48])
- Evidence emerges that the NFL’s owners colluded to suppress player wages (specifically in Lamar Jackson’s case), with the union’s leadership working to hide this from members.
- Mia [52:35]: “Even if you lose arbitration, you have physical note from a judge that says you were colluding against [us]. Take your megaphone to the top of the tallest mountain...”
- Process for choosing union leaders is totally opaque and manipulated: candidates’ names are withheld until the last minute, and right hands are kept in power by owner-friendly mechanisms (e.g., strategically keeping the outgoing president eligible by giving him a token contract).
Labor Lessons and Parallels
- The NFLPA’s trajectory is depicted as emblematic of the wider American labor movement: militancy is traded for bureaucracy and deals with management.
- Reform is described as possible, but only with mobilization—citing the victory of reformers in the UAW as an example.
Memorable Quotes
- Charles McDonald [86:22]: “Go back to the 2011 CBA. You threw the rookies under the bus, and then what did the owners do? They came and took your money, too.”
- Mia Wong [87:44]: “This stuff is started by regular people who are saying, fuck it, I'm tired of this. We got to make a change.”
2. Interview: Molly Crabapple on the Jewish Bund, Herenss, and Historical Memory
Hosts: Danael Kurd, Molly Crabapple
Timestamps: [89:57]–[116:26]
Main Points
- Bund History and “Dokite” (hereness): The Bund represented a Jewish socialist movement that believed Jews had the right to flourish where they lived, without the need for a distant “homeland.”
- Holocaust and postwar violence—not only destruction but active erasure/marginalization—crushed this tradition in favor of Zionism.
- Molly Crabapple links the Bund’s values to current leftist and diasporic Jewish movements for Palestinian solidarity, anti-fascism, and rebuilding a politics rooted in dignity rather than ethnonationalism.
- Memorable moment [112:13] Molly: “Mocking people for being murdered in the Holocaust... the boons ideology of solidarity, cross difference of hearness and of socialism is profoundly threatening.”
3. Analysis: Western Misinformation and Violence in Nigeria
Hosts: Andrew Sage, James Stout
Timestamps: [116:41]–[140:14]
Main Points
- The current “Christian genocide” narrative in Nigeria is manufactured by Western right-wing groups, particularly Trump allies, to justify intervention and obscure the political/economic roots of violence.
- Attacks are not simply religious but are bound up in struggles over land, resource extraction, and the legacy of Western arms transfers.
- Analysts stress solidarity and centering the real people affected, rather than letting U.S. politicians and media drive the narrative to suit imperial or economic interests.
4. Executive Disorder Weekly: News, Absurdity, and Dark Comedy
Hosts: Garrison Davis, James Stout, Mia Wong, Robert Evans, others
Timestamps: [140:23]–[205:40]
Key Segments & Quotes
- Political Betting Markets: Mainstreaming “Kalshi” and similar services, blurring lines between news, gambling, and partisan incentives.
- Robert Evans [141:58]: “It's just turning politics into like a corrupt casino.”
- Trump’s Iran Escalation:
- Strait of Hormuz crisis, presidential threats of genocidal scale.
- Robert Evans [167:12]: “You should assume that the president might actually try to wipe out a culture... People should be outraged that a president said [this].”
- Democratic Election Blowout:
- Mia Wong [189:27]: “The Republicans got absolutely hammered, like all up and down the ballot in Wisconsin…in Georgia…a continuation of a trend that we've seen over the past couple of years…they just get clobbered.”
- “It's giving war crime” Viral Clip:
- Georgia voter [197:20]: “It's giving war crime. We don't just annihilate people because we can... That's what we've done in Venezuela and that's what we're doing in Iran.”
- Absurdism of American Decline:
- FEMA official claims to have teleported to a Waffle House during cancer treatment (“teleportation incident”); New York Times runs headline “FEMA Official Says He Teleported to Waffle House. Experts are Dubious.”
- CNBC discusses the “upside risk” of Trump’s genocide threat for investors: “Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?” — hosts aghast at casual commodification of destruction.
Notable Quotes with Timestamps
- On Union Decay & Management Collusion
- Charles McDonald [38:00]: “Your executive director of the union works for hedge funds that are extracting value from these Teams... That should be disqualifying.”
- Mia Wong [35:32]: “Good for him. Maybe you don't want to tell me, a reporter, like, what's going on but you should tell the other people within your union...”
- On Workers' Struggle and Exploitation
- Charles McDonald [74:58]: “There's a real like systemic obvious extraction of value from these black men. And yeah. Once it's over, they say good luck.”
- On Political Absurdity
- Robert Evans [184:53]: “Big upside risk or downside risk to genocide? How do we do that?”
- Mia Wong [185:01]: “When they have to explain to people how 8 billion people were like, consumed into these, like, roles that they were forced to inhabit by the machinations of capital. This is gonna be the one.”
Highlight Moments by Timestamp
- Union history and rise of secrecy: [08:43]–[31:03]
- Lloyd Howell scandal & coverage of collusion evidence: [35:59]–[54:53]
- Linking union decay to broader labor issues, reform possibilities: [76:40]–[87:48]
- Georgia voter “war crime” soundbite: [197:20]
- CNBC “genocide upside risk” coverage: [184:39]
- FEMA teleportation incident: [149:56]
- Molly Crabapple on Bund memory and erasure: [112:13]
Flow and Tone
The episode combines cutting sports insider talk, deep labor history, and radical analysis with moments of irreverent humor and shock, especially in the weekly news round-up. The language is direct, passionate, sometimes darkly comic, and always accessible—anchored in the hosts’ original style. The tone oscillates between exasperated, amused, outraged, and hopeful.
Summary for Non-Listeners
Whether you care about sports, unions, or just want to understand the mechanisms of decay in American institutions, this episode is a sweeping journey through corruption and complicity at the heart of both professional football and U.S. society. It draws out how the powerful manipulate the rules, control information, and insulate themselves from accountability—and how those left out can still fight back. Through discussion of sports, labor, memory, geopolitics, and the outright bizarre, It Could Happen Here paints a vivid picture of America at the crossroads of collapse and resistance.