Washington received received an F for its treatment of players’ families, a D+ for its nutritional offerings, a C+ for its weight room, an F- for its athletic training room, a D for its athletic training staff and an F- for its locker room and travel operations.
“The locker room does not have confidence that club owner Dan Snyder is willing to invest to upgrade the facilities, as players rank him 31st in this category,” the Commanders’ report reads.
The Commanders did, however, earn the one of the highest marks in the league, an A+, for their strength and conditioning coaches.
The team’s report also noted the Commanders were “consistently identified” as having an understaffed athletic training room. Players reported a lack of warm water and poor drainage in showers and minimal personal space in the locker room and on team flights.
Washington is one of six teams that require young players to share rooms on road trips.
The Minnesota Vikings, Miami Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders graded the highest.
The NFLPA said the basis for the survey was not, at least initially, to take action, unless obviously warranted.
“I don’t think as of now our plan was to make demands of every individual teams,” NFLPA president and former offensive lineman JC Tretter said. “… I think what they do on their on accord is going to matter a lot.”
Tretter said the union’s hope isn’t to shame owners or teams, but rather to urge the lagging teams to improve and to highlight the teams whose players reported pleasant environments.
“I think some [owners] are probably shameless at this point,” Tretter said. “You’re not going to pull on their heartstrings or convince them to do the right thing. I think that time has come and gone. But I think there will be some that read [the survey], and whether [they take it personally] or whether [they say], ‘I didn’t know about this; this isn’t fair, this isn’t right,’ I mean, there are some really basic things where it’s like, this shouldn’t be happening.”
