Why did the Chiefs win on the field, but flunk off of it? | Inside Coverage
Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson discuss the latest edition of the NFLPA report cards and why the back-to-back Super Bowl champions received a failing grade from their players. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” - part of the “Zero Blitz” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
JASON FITZ: The big grade that stood out was a negative 1. The Chiefs rank 31st overall, which is stunning because they ranked 1st with their head coach, obviously, but had a D-plus or worse in seven categories, including having Clark Hunt ranked as the worst owner. C Rob, like, I get that you're winning games, so maybe it doesn't matter. But that has to be a gut punch to the Hunt family, to the Chiefs organization. To see that sort of perception, that has to hurt.
CHARLES ROBINSON: It was because Hunt got that F-minus. It was because they didn't get any other grade above a C-plus other than Andy Reid getting an A-plus. So across the board, it was either mediocrity or players are like, this is not good, like it's just a bad situation. They were not happy. And JC Tretter, again, he just said, look, from his understanding, it was they felt like there were promises made in different avenues of the franchise. And one big one was this renovation of the practice facility locker room.
According to Tretter, players said that they had been told following the 2022 season, which resulted in a Super Bowl, they were going to have a new locker room, a renovated locker room, coming into the 2023 offseason build up to last season. Then they got there and they're like, wait, nothing's changed. It's the same exact locker room, except we have chairs now instead of stools. Like, that's the only thing that changed. And so according to Tretter, the response that the franchise gave was, well, you played too deep into the offseason, or you played too deep into the postseason. And so we didn't have time to do it, so we just didn't do it.
What I thought was remarkable about all this is how powerful this tool has gotten, already in just two years. And you have an owner of the Super Bowl champs on the same day the report card comes out being asked, yo, you got an F-minus. Like, what is going to answer for that? I think it really speaks to the voice that you see developing the last few years with NFL players where they're starting-- as long as they have the proper tool to use the voice, they're willing to use it.