The NFLPA released its first-ever team report cards on Wednesday, and boy, did we get to find out a lot about all 32 teams and how bad some of them are at, among other things, treating players’ families.
You should take some time and go through all the results from these report cards because they are pretty juicy.
The NFLPA explained these report cards and what they hope to accomplish with these anonymous scores given by players:
1,300 of our players provided information to share with one another about their current club, to not only help them make important career decisions, but also help raise standards across the league.
Our goals were to highlight positive clubs, identify areas that could use improvement, and highlight best practices and standards. To learn more about the background of this initiative, read a note from President JC Tretter here.
While there were eight different categories—including locker rooms, travel, and nutrition—we’re going to take a look at the four teams that got F’s for how they treat families.
1. Arizona Cardinals, F
The Cardinals tied for last in this category, mostly because of these two findings in the reports:
- They are one of 14 teams that do not offer a family room for use on game days.
- They are one of 11 teams that do not offer daycare.
2. Cincinnati Bengals, F
The Bengals also don’t offer a family room or daycare.
This blurb from the report card on the Bengals is pretty wild:
"The players who responded to the survey also complained that there is nowhere warm and safe for mothers and kids to go during the game because the Bengals do not provide a family room, unlike the majority of teams. Players reported that wives have sat on the public restroom floor to nurse their babies."
3. Jacksonville Jaguars, F
The Jaguars had similar bad reports:
"The second issue was the players’ feeling that the team can take better care of the players’ families. For example, because they do not offer a family room like most NFL teams do in their stadium, we heard of instances where players' wives nursed their babies on the floor of a public restroom."
What was the first issue?
Rats.
"When asked what the number one thing they want changed at their facility, the answer was unanimous—get rid of the rats! Players reported that for 3-4 weeks this season, there was a rat infestation in the locker room and laundry hampers."
Gross.
4. Washington Commanders, F
The Commanders, to the surprise of absolutely no one, finished last overall in the report. How Dan Snyder’s franchise treats families was one of four F’s (three of which were F-’s) they got.
Screengrab via NFLPA.
Not great!
