INDIANAPOLIS — The Washington Commanders are dead last no more.
After previously ranking 32nd among the NFL’s 32 teams for its workplace environment and culture in the NFL Players Association’s annual survey, the franchise this year jumped 21 spots to 11th, one of the most significant signs yet of Washington’s dramatic turnaround under owner Josh Harris. Dan Quinn was the players’ top-ranked head coach, a year after he was ranked as one of the top two coordinators when he ran the Dallas Cowboys’ defense.
“Josh Harris last year had one of my favorite quotes — ‘I’m not an F-minus guy’ — and proved it this year,” NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter said Wednesday. “What’s impressive about that is it really shows the point of this project. If you’ve been in the Commanders’ facility, it’s still the same facility. … He made changes in staffing, he made changes in what players had been asking for, and he changed the culture there — and you could feel that.”
The NFLPA canvassed the league from August to November and received responses from 1,695 players, an average of 53 per team.
Tretter noted that the surveys and grades from players showed no correlation to teams’ winning percentage; the Kansas City Chiefs, for instance, have ranked among the worst teams in multiple categories over the years despite playing in five of the past six Super Bowls.
The Commanders, however, have improved nearly every facet of their operations, according to the survey, resulting in not just better accommodations for players but better play on the field. Washington’s 12-5 record in the 2024 season was its best in 33 years, leading to its first NFC championship game appearance since the 1991 season.
Shortly after taking over the team in July 2023, Harris and his partners, including Mitchell Rales and Mark Ein, met with players to learn the shortcomings of the facilities and operations and to understand what they wanted to change. Using the players’ input, the owners made vast changes to the facilities and added services that many players had been requesting for years.
At the stadium, the team now offers day care for the children of players and staff members during games. The Commanders’ treatment of families received a B-plus grade, up from an F-minus last year.
“That goes to Josh and [General Manager Adam Peters],” Quinn said Wednesday. “There’s no gap in between what [Harris] says and what he does, so to have that type of reflection in a year is really big. We told him how important this was to us; he heard that from the players and then took action on that. That’s honestly what that relationship has been for us — what do we need to win, and how do we go about doing that? To see things like family support and having that increase, that’s really big.”
Washington’s athletic training group — which expanded under Harris, including with the appointment of Tim McGrath as the senior director of player health and performance — showed marked improvement, jumping from 31st to 11th in the rankings. Quinn also installed a daily recovery period in which players can receive a variety of treatment from specialists, including massage therapy, cupping, dry-needling and yoga.
Ninety-two percent of Washington players who took the survey reported they receive enough one-on-one treatment from athletic trainers, the sixth-highest percentage in the league.
There have been other changes. Instead of housing players at a budget hotel during training camp, Washington had players stay at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, and the team traveled to Baltimore for its Week 6 meeting with the Ravens in luxury “sleeper” buses. The Commanders received an A grade for travel after getting an F-minus two years ago and an F last year.
The team tweaked its food services to include not just plated meals but also buffet-style offerings, improving its grade from a D-plus in the previous survey to a B-plus.
Washington’s 30-year-old turf field at its Ashburn training facility was pulled up and replaced with grass. Harris green-lit a total revamp of the Commanders’ training facility, with renovated meeting rooms, improved shower areas and changes to travel arrangements.
Harris and his ownership team also have invested more than $75 million on repairs to Northwest Stadium, improving the traffic flow around it and upgrading premium suites.
Among the persistent bright spots for Washington, even when the rest of the team’s operations lagged: its strength and conditioning staff. The group, led by Chad Englehart, received at least an A grade for the third straight year.
“The first two years to this year, I think it’s a different setup, a different environment,” Tretter said. “But the fact that they’ve always been kind of a shining light at that facility I think deserves praise as well. They’ve always been there for the guys, and guys have always appreciated them.”
The two areas that continued to get low ratings were the nutritionist/dietitian offerings — only 66 percent of players reported they get individualized nutrition plans, the 31st-lowest percentage in the league — and the locker room. Only 43 percent of the survey participants in Washington said they feel they have enough space at their lockers, and only 49 percent felt the room was adequate.
At the end of last season, Harris said the improvements would continue, estimating the total investment would approach $100 million. He continues to negotiate with D.C. and Maryland on the location of the team’s next stadium.
The NFLPA began surveying players about team workplaces and general operations during the 2022 season, hoping to gain a clearer perspective of the differences between clubs and to pressure owners to make improvements where necessary.
The Commanders finished that season 8-9 but had an array of issues off the field, mostly connected to former employees and then-owner Daniel Snyder. They also had notoriously antiquated facilities because of the minimal investments in capital repairs.
The team’s practice facility in Ashburn, which opened in 1992, and its stadium in Landover, which opened in 1997, had long been the subject of complaints from fans and players because of subpar accommodations and safety concerns.
So it wasn’t a surprise that the team received an F-minus grade in three categories — locker room, training room and travel arrangements — in the NFLPA’s inaugural report card from the 2022 season. Washington also got an F for its treatment of players’ families, a D-plus for its food and nutritional offerings, a D for its training staff and a C-plus for its weight room. The A-plus for its strength coaches that season tied for the best in the league.
Washington’s report card for the 2023 season didn’t improve much, despite the sale of the franchise to Harris that summer. Harris took over just days before training camp, limiting what he could change before the season began.
The NFLPA expanded its assessment from eight to 11 categories in 2023, with the addition of head coaches and ownership grades and the division of food services into two groups, food/cafeteria and nutritionist/dietitian. Washington again received an F-minus in three categories (treatment of families, locker room and training staff) and an F in two others (training staff and travel).
“Yeah, I’m not an F-minus guy,” Harris quipped during the league meetings last March. “I didn’t know you could get an F-minus.”
Washington finished the 2023 season a dreadful 4-13, but Harris vowed to make changes. Peters was tabbed as general manager and Quinn was hired as coach, leading to a vast turnover of the front office, coaching staff and roster.
Focus recently shifted to the business staff, with the hiring of Mark Clouse as president, replacing Jason Wright.
“We’re going to do a lot of things in the offseason to make players’ lives better, to make coaches’ lives better, to make front office lives better,” Harris said this month. “… We got a whole bunch of plans to help the premium areas, to continue to build infrastructure and to continue to make the upper deck better — I mean, a lot of stuff. But here, really, we’re going to focus right now on the stadium itself.”
