The NFL has won the grievance filed against the NFL Players Association over the annual team report cards that the union began assigning to teams regarding player working conditions. An arbitrator ruled that the NFLPA’s conduct violated terms of the collective bargaining agreement, deeming the publication of the report cards to be disparaging toward clubs and individuals. The arbitrator issued an order prohibiting the NFLPA from continuing to publish or publicly disclose the results of team report cards.
The NFL on Friday issued a memo to all 32 teams informing them of the results of the grievance, which the league filed in mid-November.
Beginning in 2023, the NFLPA began conducting anonymous player surveys on a wide range of categories that involved working conditions, with the quality of facilities, family accommodations, travel accommodations, cafeteria arrangements, coaching and training staff ranking among them. The union compiled the findings and awarded teams report cards with letter grades on specific categories. The union released the findings during the same week as the NFL Combine and hoped that the exercise would help hold teams accountable and prompt them to address problem areas.
NFL owners displayed a mixed response to the team report cards. Some teams bolstered the size of their training staffs, increased cafeteria offerings and improved the areas designed to accommodate families at the stadiums on game days. The New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals both agreed to build new practice facilities after receiving low grades. But as a whole, owners and league officials disliked the nature of the surveys, expressing a belief that the published findings unnecessarily painted them in a negative light and insisted that there were already channels in place for the players to work through to address areas of concern.
The arbitrator — an individual jointly appointed and paid by the NFL and NFLPA — agreed.
A portion of the memo sent by the NFL to its teams read, “Throughout the course of these proceedings, despite numerous requests, the NFLPA steadfastly refused to produce any information or data related to prior years’ surveys. However, at the hearing, the NFLPA’s witness and counsel characterized the Report Cards as “union speech” and admitted that: (1) the union reviewed player responses and cherry-picked which topics and responses to include (or not) in the Team Report Cards; (2) players had no role in drafting the commentary included in the Report Cards which was written entirely by union staffers; (3) the union selected which anonymous individual player quotations to include (or exclude entirely) to support its chosen narrative; and (4) 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 arbitrator agreed with the league that the NFLPA’s methodology raised questions about the accuracy of the findings of the survey. The league did, however, encourage officials of each team to continue to solicit feedback directly from players about working conditions and potential areas that each owner could invest in improving. The NFL also informed teams that, in accordance with the CBA, the Management Council will continue to work with the NFLPA to conduct a survey that focuses on the adequacy of medical care.
When reached for comment, a league spokesman said, “We are pleased with the decision from the arbitrator, upholding the parties’ collective bargaining agreement and prohibiting the NFLPA from disparaging our clubs and individuals through ‘report cards’ allegedly based on data and methodologies that it has steadfastly refused to disclose.
“We remain committed to working in partnership with the NFLPA and an independent survey company to develop and administer a scientifically valid survey to solicit accurate and reliable player feedback as the parties agreed in the CBA.”
NFLPA leaders, meanwhile, didn’t immediately respond to the news of the arbitrator’s ruling.