When it comes to the NFL’s year-long content calendar, one of the more unique traditions has been the NFLPA’s annual team report cards.
Those public progress reports, however, are now coming to an end, with ESPN’s Adam Schefter reporting that the league has won a grievance against the players regarding the report cards, which an arbitrator determined to be a violation of the collective bargaining agreement.
“We are pleased to report that the NFL prevailed in the grievance filed against the NFL Players Association, challenging its practice of creating and publicizing annual ‘Team Report Cards,'” the league said in a memo to its teams. “The arbitrator held that the publication of Report Cards disparaging NFL clubs and individuals violates the Collective Bargaining Agreement and issued an Order prohibiting the NFLPA from publishing or publicly disclosing the results of future player Report Cards.”
Sources: The NFL informed all 32 teams today in a memo that it prevailed in its grievance vs. the NFLPA and its “team report cards.” An arbitrator determined that the NFLPA’s conduct violated the CBA and ordered it to stop making public any future report cards. pic.twitter.com/mss5WUQjhF
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 13, 2026
According to the league’s memo, “the NFLPA steadfastly refused to produce any information or data related to prior years’ surveys” throughout the grievance process. The memo also stated that the NFLPA had framed its report cards as “union speech,” while also conceding that certain answers were “cherry-picked” to be included in the report cards, which were written by union staffers, and that the union “determined the weight to give each topic and the resulting impact on the alphabetical grades it assigned.”
“In essence, the record established that the Report Cards were designed by the union to advance its interests under the guise of a scientific exercise,” the memo reads. “These facts highlight the numerous and significant limitations in the methodology and accuracy of the Team Report Card results that have been reported over the past three years. Clubs should continue to solicit feedback directly from their own players to assess the club’s strengths and opportunities for improvement and when considering continued Ownership investment into facilities, staff and services.”
The league also added that its Management Council will continue to work with the players to implement an appropriate survey in the coming seasons.
All things considered, it’s hardly a surprise that the league moved to end the NFLPA surveys, which routinely served as a source of embarrassment for its teams. The grading was especially hard on the Cincinnati Bengals, who received an “F-” grade for their treatment of players’ families in each of the last two seasons.
But while many viewed the report cards as a tool to help keep teams accountable, the NFL made a convincing enough case that they fell outside the lines of what had already been negotiated in the CBA. And although the league has now publicly committed to participating in a viable alternative in the future, it’s hard to imagine that whatever that looks like will pack the same punch that the NFLPA’s own report cards did.