The NFL doesn’t want its Players Association to continue sending out annual report cards for all 32 teams, according to ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr.
Documents obtained by ESPN reveal the report cards “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.”
The annual report cards have letter grades for each team in different areas including ownership, travel and other amenities including rooms for the player’s families.
In February, the New England Patriots ranked 31st out of 32 teams, plummeting from 2024 when they ranked 29th. They received an “F” for outdated planes that had ashtrays in the seats and no Wi-Fi, and an “F” for the outdated weight room.
“We have responded to the grievance with our intention to fight against this action and continue what’s clearly become an effective tool for comparing workplace standards across the league and equipping you to make informed career decisions,” the NFLPA wrote in its response, per ESPN.
The information for the report cards is collected anonymously from players. It’s something New York Jets owner Woody Johnson took issue with, noting it wasn’t representative of the players because not every player takes part in the survey.
Whether the report cards go away remains to be seen, but one NFL owner told ESPN that the owners who are against the report cards are the “ones who get the subpar grades.”
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