Saints will improve cafeteria, but they claim it has nothing to do with NFLPA grades
Good news: The Saints' grade from the NFL Players Association for its cafeteria improved in 2024.
Bad news: It was still an F.
The Saints, via Matthew Paras of the New Orleans Advocate, will upgrade their cafeteria. Team president Dennis Lauscha claims it has nothing to do with the F- in 2023 and the F in 2024.
How much did the NFLPA impact affect the decision?
“I’ll say this in the abundance of respect: Zero,” Lauscha said. “It’s nothing against their survey, but we had it on the books for a while to improve our cafeteria, improve the cooking area. . . . The cooking area . . . it’s over 20 years old. It had to be changed. It had to be upgraded."
Even if the renovations were planned separate and apart from the feedback, what's wrong with acknowledging the accuracy of the feedback?
Teams that receive bad grades in the annual NFLPA report card can do one of two things. They can take the feedback seriously and look for ways to improve, or they can downplay or disagree with the input from their most important employees.
The NFLPA grading system is one of the best ideas the union has ever had. It has created a way to impose true accountability on organizations that generally have little or none. Owners can't be fired, as Jed York once said. But they can be shamed publicly.
That's power. And the NFLPA is using it. Good for the NFLPA.
