The NFLPA released its first ever “team report cards" on Wednesday, giving players plenty to mull over ahead of this year’s free agency. While a few teams made it it out unscathed (the Vikings aced their evaluation while the Dolphins and Raiders were similarly applauded), most didn’t, including the Cardinals, who received failing grades in a number of key categories including weight room (F-), locker room (F), training room (F-), treatment of families (F) and food service/nutrition (F-).
The latter deficiency is particularly concerning, with those surveyed expressing their immense dissatisfaction at the food they were served, grading it the lowest quality in the NFL. And that’s not the worst of it. Not only were players subject to far and away the league’s worst food, but apparently the Cardinals made them pay for it too, deducting meals from their paychecks.
“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,” the report card reads. “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).”
With the NFL reporting over $18 billion in revenue last year, you’d think the Cardinals could adequately feed their own team, but apparently not, incentivizing players to eat elsewhere by billing them for boxed meals. Unfortunately, this is par for the course for a team that can’t seem to get its act together, embarrassing Kyler Murray in contract negotiations last year (his humilating “homework clause” was ultimately scrapped) while also putting players at risk of injury with State Farm Stadium’s poor field conditions.
No wonder Arizona’s head-coaching job took so long to fill, with the Cardinals eventually settling on Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon after being turned down by Sean Payton and Brian Flores. Coming off a Super Bowl loss that saw his defense allow 38 points to Kansas City, Gannon replaces Kliff Kingsbury, who the Cardinals fired a year after signing him to a whopping $30-million extension, all of it guaranteed. That money probably could have been better spent on refurbishing the team cafeteria, which 31 percent of players complained was too small.
The whole fiasco is eerily reminiscent to a scene in Moneyball, when newcomer David Justice was surprised to learn the A’s charged players for soda in the clubhouse vending machine, preferring (as Jonah Hill’s character so eloquently put it) to “keep their money on the field.”
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