Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II has taken a lot of heat when the NFLPA’s annual report cards are released. Ones that often give him bad grades and rank him as one of the worst owners in sports. Now, the owners are fighting back. Per ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr., the NFL is trying to put the kibosh on the report cards.
“The league claims the report cards, which poll players on various aspects of working conditions, violate a CBA clause that says NFL owners and the union must ‘use reasonable efforts to curtail public comments by club personnel or players which express criticism of any club, its coach, or its operation and policy,’ according to an August letter from the league’s management council to NFLPA general counsel Tom DePaso, obtained by ESPN.”
It’s not clear if Rooney made any push in the NFL’s bid to shut down this exercise, but it’s logical that those who have been criticized the most would be the most willing actors to push for change.
The NFL has filed a grievance to try and prevent future grades. For now, the NFLPA is holding firm and plans to release grades in early 2026. Per the reporting, the league asked the union on two previous occasions to stop posting public grades. Now, the NFL hopes to have its case heard by an arbitrator in early February 2026.
The most recent grades dropped on Feb. 26. Rooney and the Steelers again ranked near the bottom, 28th out of 32 teams. The biggest criticisms came in the nutritionist/dietitian category, locker rooms, and strength and conditioning. Pittsburgh ranked last in the latter and was a clear reflection of new S&C coach Phil Matusz, who might come to be one of Mike Tomlin’s worst hires of his tenure.
Rooney has often brushed off the grades as clickbait fodder.
“It doesn’t get presented to us; it gets presented to the media. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a media opportunity for the players association as opposed to a serious effort of constructive criticism,” he said in March 2024.
However, it’s clear Rooney has at least heard the criticism. Pittsburgh’s locker room received offseason upgrades, albeit low-level ones that effectively amounted to a new coat of paint. The Steelers have one of the smallest and most basic home locker rooms in the NFL.
ESPN’s reporting indicates there’s a system in place to share player feedback behind closed doors. Comments that aren’t supposed to be public knowledge. Now that the NFLPA is shining a light on how players really feel about the state of their organizations and the people who own them, the league wants to “fix” that. By putting a muzzle on the union and leaving those matters between players and owners. Not the outside world. An arbitrator could decide that fate in a couple of months.
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