New York Jets owner Woody Johnson got the only failing grade by team members in the NFL’s players union report card released Wednesday.
The flunk should come as no surprise. The Jets’ 14 straight seasons without making the playoffs tops four major North American sports, and their abandoned two-year experiment with aging superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers was a bust.
The “F” grade specifically addressed ownership’s contribution “to a positive team culture” with players noting the organization’s “top-down problems.”
In a damning assessment, the NFL Players Association wrote: “Rather than addressing concerns, players believed that management responded to feedback by making conditions worse.”
The picture got bleaker at the scouting combine, where NFLPA chief strategy officer J.C. Tretter elaborated on the Jets’ survey. ”[The players said,] ‘It’s a culture of fear here.’ And I think that stood out in those grades,” he said, per ESPN.
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The Jets ranked 29th out of 32 teams overall in 11 categories, which included food, locker room and treatment of families. Nearly 1,700 players voted.
Johnson fired the head coach early in the season and got crappy results after that.
Now Johnson, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in the first Trump administration, is trying another team staff reboot with Jets alum Aaron Glenn as head coach and Darren Mougey as general manager.
“Absolutely, I have to look in the mirror, and I have to be a better owner,” Johnson said after hiring the two.
The report card said the same thing ― LOUDLY.
