J.J. Watt is quickly filling a niche as a man of the people within NFL media.
Fresh off a campaign against the use of Pro Football Focus player grades on Sunday Night Football broadcasts, Watt is turning his attention toward an even more hot-button issue.
The NFL on Wednesday moved to halt the release of team report cards by the NFLPA, reportedly filing a grievance against the union. And Watt was furious at the double standard it illustrated, which is coming from ownership around the league.
“Why do they not have issues with Pro Bowl voting, award voting, all of that?” Watt questioned on The Pat McAfee Show. “Because I know that guys go in there and one rookie fills them out for the whole group, or the PR person fills them out. But they’re fine with that. Nobody’s ever questioned any of those things. They’re fine with voting that literally affects contracts.”
“It’s the teams that are getting bad grades that are frustrated..
These owners don’t want to spend the money to make things better” ~ @JJWatt #PMSLive https://t.co/WwgBNVnf2A pic.twitter.com/vZKjHvqrjE
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 19, 2025
The report cards are created by the union and designed to allow player feedback to ownership about the working conditions within each team. According to ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., the league is claiming the practice violates a clause in the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement designed to “curtail” critical public comments about the league or its teams.
The NFLPA is reportedly moving forward with this year’s survey despite the grievance. The league wants to replace report cards with previously approved surveys jointly conducted by the league and the union, which reportedly fell off in recent years.
Watt believes the players’ right to make their voices heard is essential. While he acknowledged that the contents of the report cards can make teams look bad, he felt similarly disrespected as a player when team reps leaked information, such as news of his heart condition in 2022.
The problem is not the specifics of the surveys conducted, Watt said, but teams’ resistance to improvement.
“They don’t want to spend money, they don’t want to get it right,” he said. “I get very frustrated when there’s one little thing that the players have, finally, to voice their opinion on what’s going on in the building, and now that thing is being suppressed.”