The Washington Commanders came in last place in the NFL Player Association’s 2024 report card and the spot is not somewhere owner Josh Harris plans to stay. Harris bought the team from Dan Snyder last season, but was unable to make a significant improvement from the 2023 report card grades.
This year, Commanders received an F- in “treatment of families,” “locker room” and “training room.” They earned an F in “training staff” and “team travel,” a D+ in “food/cafeteria,” a C in “weight room” and a B- in “food/nutrition.” Their highest grade came in the “strength coaches” category, who earned an A.
While some owners are dismissing the report, Harris is taking it seriously and is not satisfied with getting such low marks.
“I’m not an F-minus guy,” Harris said (via NBCSportsWashington.com). “I didn’t even know you could get an F-minus. Obviously, we’ve jumped all over that. First of all, that report was based on interviews that occurred right around the ownership change.”
Harris was given a C grade for ownership.
Going forward, Harris wants to invest in the team locker room and training room. He said it is something they are focused on this offseason, adding that general manager Adam Peters and head coach Dan Quinn are involved in the work.
“It’s clearly something we’re focused on,” Harris said. “In fact, Adam and Dan had to leave the NFL meetings briefly to go have a discussion with the architects. We’re trying to make a lot of changes quickly. The NFL player community is a small community, the NFL coaching community is a small community. We want to be a place that everyone says, ‘That’s a great place to be.’ And therefore, we need to upgrade that facility, and we are upgrading that facility.”
The plans do not stop there. Harris wants to make upgrades across the board, including the playing surface, but does not have a timeline for when the other projects will be done.
“There’s only so much you can do,” Harris said. “We have to look at, How much can we do? It’s a lot like the situation we were in when we took over last July: There’s only so much we could do before the season. There’s only so much we can do before training camp, and we’re going to do that.”
The NFLPA says one of their main jobs as a union is “to improve the overall working conditions for our players, which includes the daily experience of players at the team facilities away from the lights and cameras.” Their hope with the report card is that the positive clubs are highlighted and “identify areas that could use improvement.”
Harris appears to be in line with the NFLPA’s aims and is taking the grade as a way to reflect on what he and the team can do better.
In 2023, before Harris took over, the Commanders got an F in “treatment of families,” a D+ in “nutrition,” a C+ in “weight room,” an A+ in “strength staff,” an F- in “training room” and “locker room” and a D in “training staff.”
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Author: Shanna McCarriston
March 28, 2024 | 3:41 pm