When team owners are cheap and (usually also) incompetent, players are well aware. But the breadth of owners’ decision-making, and the ways it can affect a team, is usually tough to quantify.
The NFL Players Association attempted to remedy that problem. On Wednesday, the NFLPA released the results of a sprawling survey of 1,300 players that asked them about working conditions at their clubs.
Teams were ranked on a scale from F- to A+ in a number of categories, including treatment of families, nutrition/food service, weight room, strength staff, training staff, training room, locker room and team travel.
The San Francisco 49ers ranked 7th out of 32 teams, with their training room the only area that could use improvement:
Here’s the rub:
The San Francisco 49ers are ranked 7th among all NFL clubs in our team guide. The responses for the team were positive in all but one section: the training room, a crucial area for players to rehab and recover. The tubs and rehab pool are viewed as small and there are a lack of tables and space in the training room itself.
Jed York ranked 7th among team owners for his willingness invest money into upgrading their facilities, so there is a belief that investment will be made to ensure these areas are upgraded to meet the high standards set by the rest of the facilities.
It’s a far cry from Jed York’s early days as owner, when confidence in him was low, and he was tweeting veiled criticisms of the team under Jim Harbaugh. York has improved notably since then, with the hire of Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch a massive win after the Chip Kelly and Jim Tomsula debacles.
His investment has not gone unnoticed. It all starts with the owner. There’s a reason the Cardinals, even when they were winning a couple years ago, were not taken seriously.
They hired an unserious head coach with a losing college record and are run by an unserious man. Arizona ranked 31st out of 32 teams, with team travel, strength coaches and training staff the only positive categories they have going. For reference, only five teams gave their strength staffs less than an A- rating.
The blurb on team owner Michael Bidwell is particularly brutal, and deservedly so. The man is apparently operating his team cafeteria like a mall food court.
The Arizona Cardinals rank second to last in their overall score among the 32 NFL clubs. The locker room does not have confidence that owner Michael Bidwill is willing to invest to upgrade the facilities, as he ranks the lowest in that category across the league. The responses that provide the bases for that characterization include: the worst-ranked weight room, which some players feel is a safety hazard; an outdated training room and locker room; and a policy of deducting dinner from players’ paychecks should players want to get food from the facility.
The consistent sentiment in players’ responses was that ownership does not provide high quality workplace facilities, and Club policies reflected the lowest rate of confidence that current ownership is willing to invest to make upgrades.
How many teams charge their players for food this way? Just Arizona. Continued, from the survey:
- If players would like dinner, it will be boxed up for them, but players reported that the team will charge you via payroll deduction. This is apparently the only Club that does this.
- Players reported that if you work out at the facility after the season is over, the team charges you for every meal eaten at the facility (again, apparently the only team in the league that does this).
The team just hired Jonathan Gannon, the former Eagles’ defensive coordinator whose group was exposed in the Super Bowl, who the 49ers predicted would get exposed in the Super Bowl, and who they believed they would have exposed if not for Brock Purdy’s elbow injury.
Gannon was blamed by Eagles players for not having his group prepared, especially by star safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson. There’s also whatever this is… when Gannon introduces himself to Rondale Moore:
Arizona is a team with a quarterback coming off an ACL, with a first-time head coach that many expect to struggle, and an owner notorious for refusing to invest in the team. Yikes.
The only team that ranked worse than the Cardinals in this survey? You guessed it. The Washington Commanders.
World-renowned owner Daniel Snyder is reportedly in the process of selling the team, but, per accurate reports that he has predictably claimed are false, he is “demanding the NFL and owners indemnify him against future legal liability if he sells the Commanders or he will sue.”
For Bidwell to be one slot above Snyder, it’s, well, damning.