A labor union of professional football players has issued letter grades in a variety of categories to the Arizona Cardinals and other NFL clubs.
The Cardinals improved from a second-to-last overall ranking for the 2022 season.
For 2023, the club ranks 27th overall out of 32 NFL teams. The NFL Players Association gave the Cardinals five flunking grades for 2022.
For the season that just ended, the Cardinals got two Fs: one for the size of the locker room and another for ownership, as players question if Michael Bidwill will invest in facilities.
Head Coach Jonathan Gannon praised his boss’s efforts to improve at a player-scouting event in Indianapolis.
“So he had a lot of that going before I even got on the job. And then when I got on the job, Monti and I were like, ‘OK, we could use this. We could use this. Let’s set this up a little bit better. It makes it better for the players.’ Michael says, ‘Great. Do it.’”
The union says providing daycare, upgrading the weight room and no longer charging players for dinner are notable improvements to working conditions made by the Cardinals.
The one A grade the Cardinals earned last season is in a new category for head coach. Gannon is entering his second year in that role.
“I don’t know how that gets scored. I don’t know how that gets distributed. I don’t know who takes that. But I think that you’ll see that our players were very pleased with how they were served in 2023,” Gannon said in Indianapolis.
The NFL Players Association says around 1,700 of its members provided information used in grading and ranking NFL teams.
