NFL Players’ Views of Commanders Dramatically Improve After First Full Year Away From Snyder Control

INDIANAPOLIS — The Commanders continue to shed their former title of the NFL’s worst franchise.

After finishing dead last in the NFL Players Association’s annual report card for two years in a row, Washington rose to 11th overall in 2025’s report cards, which were released Wednesday morning. 

Last year’s report cards covered the 2023 season, which played out only months after Josh Harris closed a deal with disgraced former owner Dan Snyder to buy the team for $6 billion in July of that year.

“I’m not an F-minus guy,” Harris deadpanned after last year’s report cards.

“A lot of stuff happened that was unfortunate,” Harris said after buying the team. “We’re focused on changing the culture. It’s about creating a management team that doesn’t look the same. It’s about zero tolerance on ethically challenged behavior.”

The Commanders were ripped across the board in the 2024 report cards with issues ranging from sewage leaks in the locker room to an understaffed training room. As Snyder sold the team, the NFL fined him $60 million after an investigation that found he sexually harassed a team employee and withheld millions in ticket revenue from the league.

Harris backed up his talk, receiving an A this year for ownership, ranking eighth among his peers. New head coach Dan Quinn was the top-ranked head coach on the report cards, too. 

The 2025 report cards mark the third year the NFLPA has done them, publicly grading teams on everything from facilities and head coach to treatment of families as a way to help drive players’ decisions in free agency and push teams to improve working conditions that aren’t strictly required under the collective bargaining agreement. In the three years they’ve existed, the report cards have led to significant changes to the players’ benefit. Despite being of interest and envy to other professional sports leagues, no other major pro sports union has followed with its own yet. 

Players fill out the survey for the report cards anonymously and the 2025 one saw nearly 1,700 players participate, roughly the same number as last year. This year’s cards had two categories added under ownership: “contribution to team culture” and “commitment to a competitive team.” 

JC Tretter, a former NFL offensive lineman who helped create the report cards as NFLPA president now serves as a chief strategist for the union, pointed out owners, such as Harris, who improved their team’s scores without putting a shovel in the ground. 

“All those things are not millions of dollars in the facilities,” Tretter told reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine on Wednesday morning. “It’s: Listen to the players, how it impacts them, doing these small improvements, and you see how quick and how easy those grades improve.” 

Other notable takeaways from the 2025 report cards: 

• The Chargers went from 30th in 2024 to 5th this year; the Falcons went from 25th to 3rd, boosted by new facilities and new coaches.
• For the second straight year the Dolphins were the league’s top-ranked overall team in terms of player treatment with the Vikings finishing second again. 
• The Steelers, Jets, Browns, Patriots, and Cardinals took the bottom five spots. Pittsburgh, New England, and Arizona have all been bottom-feeders throughout the report cards’ three years in existence. 
• Woody Johnson came in last among NFL owners after a disastrous season and reports of his teenage sons serving as key decision-makers. “They talked about the culture – it’s a problem, top down,” Tretter said of Jets players’ answers. “[They said,] ‘It’s a culture of fear here.’ And I think that stood out in those grades.”
• The Rams charge the players to use in-game daycare ($75 for the first child in the family and $50 for each additional one). 
• The Eagles, Panthers, and Colts were among teams that give coaches first-class seating on flights and have players ride in coach. The Titans used to do the same, but flipped their seating chart under new coach Brian Callahan, and their team travel grade went from F to B as a result.
• Despite reports of Cowboys players complaining about tours at the team’s practice facility while they’re working out, America’s team placed 10th out of 32 teams with no similar complaints reaching the report cards. 
• The Super Bowl champion Eagles fell from 8th to 22nd with grievances over a crowded cafeteria and the lack of daycare among team issues. Just three teams don’t offer daycare, down from seven in 2024 and 11 in 2023. 
• Buccaneers players reported plumbing issues and “persistent bad odors” in the locker room. 
• Patriots players ripped the team’s plane as “too small,” with no Wi-Fi and one player calling it the “worst thing.”

You can read all 32 NFLPA report cards here.