Cardinals come tied last in NFLPA player poll

[BritCard]

for the love…. ok. I’ll play. You have NO EVIDENCE that our facilities have NOT affected signing or re-signing players. Have you talked to every single FA we have tried to sign over the years to find out why they didn’t sign with us? Pointing to FA’s signing with us doesn’t make your OPINION a fact.

I’m not saying it did or didn’t, because there is no way to know without asking every FA that’s come through for a visit. It just gets ridiculous the way you present your OPINION as an irrefutable fact and then scoff at anyone who dares to question you.

OK, apart from all the top 10 and 20 FA's that have signed for us in the last 10 years, which I have previously listed, that would have had multiple options in who to join.

The complete lack of evidence from any player ever stating they didn't join a team because of the facilities, not just for the Cardinals, not just in the NFL but in any sport ever. I've never in 25 years of following pro sports heard a player say they didn't sign because the facilities were not top notch.

Plus with the fact that the vast, vast majority of players don't see the team facilities until after a deal is signed so how could it possible factor into their decision? "Sorry guys, you have the best deal but I heard your gym floor needs replacing. I'm out".

Apart from all that and the complete lack of evidence to the contrary that it HAS stopped players signing you're right. I have nothing.

I cannot say definitively without personally talking to every potential FA we ever tried to sign but on the balance of evidence I can be highly confident.

And as I said earlier, who cares? Who would want a fully grown adult male that plays football on their team that thinks the facilities being a 7 instead of a 10 is important? It's not RuPaul's Drag Race.

Let me ask you this. Do you truly believe if the Cardinals are offering $50m over 4 years and team B is offering $48m over 4 years that they choose B because the facilities are nicer?

What about if both offer the same money but team B is in a 5% tax state and Arizona is less than 3%? Still no right?

What about if both offer the same money but team B is offering $25m guaranteed and Arizona is offering $28m? Still no for anyone sensible. Certainly me.

What about if it's the same money but one if freezing Chicago and the other warm Arizona? Still a no for me.

How many of the dozens of more important deciding factors would you need go through before you reached the facilities being a deciding factor?

Maybe if the money, signing bonus, guarantees, status of the team, weather, tax, quarterback level, division, head coach, how close it is to travel home are all identical then you might get training facilities entering the decision.

 

[BritCard]

You know why there's 13 pages? Because a few (mainly one) people are weirdly, fiercely, and in all ways illogically, are arguing in Nickel Mike's defense.

Please show me where I defended Mike? I've asked several times. Show me one, go on.

Countering some complete nonsense made up takes is not defending Mike. Trying to be moderate and accepting Mike needs to get his act together while simultaneously recognizing that "Only 28 lie down beds on the private plane" is some peak player BS and "Mike docked $5 from my $500k weekly pay check for a take out meal" isn't something serious grown working class men that have to pay for their own meals should be overly concerned about.

You can't have a nuanced conversation here. You can think that Mike should improve the facilities, as I said weeks ago before this, while at the same time acknowledging that players paying for take out (like literally everyone else in the world), not having daycare and not having enough bed seats on the private plane are complete BS issues.

You can't argue that the issue is something other than being cheap (without being a homer apparently) considering Mike spent $15m on training facility upgrades in 2015 and over $100m on stadium upgrades since then including $28m on building the "Club Areas" at the Stadium including The Tail feather, Birds Nest, Flight Lounge and Bubble Lounge, $28m on the new parking, bridges and tunnels and $17m on Stadium loft renovations. As well as buying the 777 ($5m+).

Maybe as the Org has spent over $150m upgrading the stadium and training center since 2015 they have been a bit short of cash flow to do yet more renovations? Maybe it's on the list of things to do after spending money on all those other things?

That's no excuse for poor meals or dodgy gym floors. But just maybe it's not so simple of "Mike is a cheapskate and he sucks and should sell up"?

Maybe we could have intelligent, nuanced conversation without children calling people homers, burner accounts or Mouth of Sauron?

Cards facility has all the functions coupled to the form of a 1990's regional sales office for a Tyre manufacturer

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Hopefully this gives the Org a kick in the pants

 

[pemory09]

And the hits just keep on comin’. See https://apple.news/AMX0l9pZBT46GKhVPgH_D1Q, in particular the second point. I guess as concerns MB, the old adage that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” is absolutely true since BB was a notorious cheapskate. Sad.

 

[BritCard]

I work at a Fortune 100 with 60,000+ employees and probably like another several tens of thousands of contractors. My company started giving a $15/day food credit to the cafeteria and free snacks in the break rooms when the offices re-opened from COVID to incentivize people to come back to the office (we are pretty much a hybrid/virtual work environment now). At our last town hall, for the entire company, someone in the room in NYC raised their hand and told the CEO about how it's not fair the free snacks aren't kosher. Yes, that really happened.

Yup. I once worked for a large IT company that employed 500+ people. They had a generous holiday package of 30 days a year. They had a cafeteria where meals were provided at cost, far cheaper than any local cafe or even sandwich bar and soft drinks and coffee were free. They would have massive racks filled with water, coke, fanta and anything else you could imagine and those that had to do site visits had their own company car or van that they were allowed to use as a personal vehicle.

I was a department head and the MD was one of the best guys I ever worked for in regards to looking after employees but he liked to pat himself on the back so one year he did an employee questionnaire. He said it was to ask if they could improve anywhere but in management meetings it became clear he was just expecting it to confirm how awesome he was running the show. He expected to get back a bunch of A's.

Of course what he got back was "Canteen meals should be free", "You only have diet coke and I don't like coke. Need more diet drinks", "The coffee isn't the best", "The company cars are too small and the tax hit is too much".

He just got reams and reams of BS. He hated it. It really gutted him. He provided all this free stuff and people just took the piss. He used to be a guy that you could be like "Can I finish at 3 today boss I have a plumber coming round" but after than you had no chance. He kept all the stuff we had but it really turned him against the staff.

Of course, none of this let's Mike off the hook. You can accept that a large part of employee polls are whiny cowdung that should be ignored and also acknowledge that all the team polls contain similar levels of BS and he still came 31st.

But for all the smoke the only things that really need addressing are a "Family room", I assume this is at State Farm? Why would you have one in Tempe? Fix the gym floor and spruce up the training room. The biggest one is the meals. You don't get an F just for charging for out of hours meals. The food quality must not be great either. That needs fixing. And while millionaires whining over being charged $5 for out of hours meals is peak BS it's also something Mike could easily not do in the grand scheme of things.

The plane thing is BS. The daycare thing is BS (someone tell me why grown men need a creche while training?) and the locker room thing is BS. It's only 7 years old and there isn't room for "bigger lockers" on the site.

 

[BritCard]

One would think that the CARDS jets are leases, not purchases.

Pretty sure they own them.

The 777 was previously owned by Delta and came straight from a Delta storage facility.

 

[Solar7]

Brit: that coach is a liar

Does anything said there sound much more different than our ownership or coaching staff? I'm literally capable of giving that exact same speech in front of cameras for an organization, and have. Not really defending Brit... but... these people are very strongly media trained.

I see some nuance in this situation, and some of it was spoken to in press conferences with how Ossenfort was hired, and the process that MB, Mark Dalton, and Lisa Manning went through just to hire him, then the approach with Monti on board that the rest of that leadership team went through to listen to and hear more about what they could learn from coaches and organizational leadership.

Keep this in mind: Mike Bidwill only saw his dad lead, and when this team had hired their last out-of-organization GM in Rob Ferguson, Mike was 31. Literally the year Ferguson was hired was when MB left being a federal prosecutor and took a leadership role on the team. He hasn't known anything different.

I'm 36 years old and my organizational leadership skills are middle corporate management for a Fortune 500, a top leadership position for a mid-size marketing agency, and I consider myself a success. The guy did make some critical investments in the infrastructure of the team, the state of Arizona, and has seemingly at least tried to put the team on the map more than we were.

Not to fight Brit's fight for him, but the marquee FA that we signed in MB's era was Edgerrin James. RB's not worth what it was, but at the time, he was a major player, and graced the covers of all major sports magazines, in a wildly different way than signing a washed out player like Emmitt Smith was.

It's totally fair to call out Michael for where we ended up in this NFLPA poll, but I've been paying enough attention to his public appearances to have some idea that he's a little embarrassed by this negative attention. We'll see.

 

[BritCard]

In the case that you're trying to put someone in optimal health and positioning to be operating and training at their best, you should probably feel incentivized to give them balanced and healthy meals, instead of them eating fast food on the way home, or some kind of other garbage. I'm friends with a few (now former) NFL players, and one guy in particular really had an opportunity to cement himself in a better spot to be in line for a solid contract somewhere, but during the offseason, he'd come home and almost every night was a $100+ "crush fest" where he'd order like 2-3 extra large pizzas, McDonalds, fried chicken, and he'd just down like 6,000 calories without even considering the booze.

This is all true, but it's not like players are saying "I'm not paying $5 for this meal in the cafeteria I'm going to drive to Maccy D's and pay $10 for a Big Mac".

They are still eating the team meals, they are just not happy with $5-10 being deducted from their game check with multiple zeros.

Can we all be honest here and admit it shouldn't be high on our list of things that are important that people being paid a minimum of $15,000 a week get deducted for take out? Sure, Mike should pay for offseason meals too for people working out at the facility but let's not pretend someone having $50 deducted from their 15k is something we should be crying about.

Sign me up. I'll take $15k a week if I have to buy my own lunch while using the free gym facilities.

 

[BritCard]

You must be registered for see images attach

I truly think it's a bit of both, cheap and clueless.

Those pallets in the background were actually to make Paytons new office...

 

[Solar7]

Yup. I once worked for a large IT company that employed 500+ people. They had a generous holiday package of 30 days a year.

You're in the UK, you can't brag about 30 days of paid leave.

Here we'll have 5 days off for combined vacation and sick and we'll like it or otherwise we don't love the red white and blue!

 

[BritCard]

I don’t get it . . . I just don’t get it . . .

It doesn't really surprise me that you don't get what a moderate, balanced opinion is.

 

[BritCard]

Brit: that coach is a liar

Is the strawman intentional or can you really not understand that doesn't relate in any way at all to anything I have said? I thought you were supposed to be smart?

Explain to me how McConnell saying that how they treat players is important to them, something that every single GM and coach in the league would say, in even the smallest way relates to anything I've said?

I assume you are specifically trying to suggest it relates to "players are not avoiding us in FA due to facilities". I'd be interested to know how you think the two possible relate.

 

[Solar7]

This is all true, but it's not like players are saying "I'm not paying $5 for this meal in the cafeteria I'm going to drive to Maccy D's and pay $10 for a Big Mac".

They are still eating the team meals, they are just not happy with $5-10 being deducted from their game check with multiple zeros"

Can we all be honest here and admit it shouldn't be high on our list of things that are important that people being paid a minimum of $15,000 a week get deducted for take out? Sure, Mike should pay for offseason meals too for people working out at the facility but let's not pretend someone having $50 deducted from their 15k is something we should be crying about.

Sign me up. I'll take $15k a week if I have to buy my own lunch while using the free gym facilities.

You could call me Captain Qualifier instead of Captain America, because I can give you marginal arguments about how this all balances out.

My guess is that the tax savings playing in AZ and paying per take-home meal are less than the income taxes playing for an LA or NY team. Heck, cost of living, too.

I do draw a line where we should be doing everything possible to keep our players in top shape, though. Great food, balanced nutrition, low stress, comfortable exercise facilities, and less years where we're the most injured in the league.

 

[BritCard]

You're in the UK, you can't brag about 30 days of paid leave.

Here we'll have 5 days off for combined vacation and sick and we'll like it or otherwise we don't love the red white and blue!

In that employee poll people actually complained the occasionally had to work weekends or holidays (if on call to fix server issues etc) even though it was more than made up for in paid holiday time.

 

[kerouac9]

Most deals are done, or nearly done, before the window to visit teams even opens.

Go take a look at all the FA deals done in the first week of free agency last year and see if you can find one that visited the team before the deal was done. Or look at he top 20 guys in FA.

Most deals in free agency aren’t closed in the first week, and more than 20 players move in free agency every year.

The marquee guys have deals in place, but the majority of players are shopping and being shopped up to and after the draft. This survey captures the opinions of those players more than the handful of marquee talent on the rosters.

 

[BritCard]

Nope they say I’ll take $12M to sign with you instead of $9M to sign elsewhere.

This is freaking hilarious.

Please tell me how you imagine that conversation goes?

Agent: The player likes the team Steve. He likes the coach. He's loves the warm weather and your $9m offer is fair. It's the same as elsewhere but the terms are better. But your facilities are only a 7 and he heard you charge for take out. So with that in mind he's going to need $12m.

Keim: Hey Mike. Players are asking for more money to sign here because the facilities are only a 7 and they don't want to pay for take out. This guy here, he wants $3m more per year to come because of it.

Mike: That's $12m more over 4 years just for 1 guy? Better to do that than spend that money on upgrading the facility and giving them takeaway. Screw those guys. I'd rather save a few thousand bucks on food. Pay him the extra $3m.

You must do Wills or Real Estate law right? Not anything that requires actual critical thinking?

 

[BullheadCardFan]

Looks like the Chiefs are having similar issues

Players say Chiefs discourage them from reporting injuries, have NFL's worst training staff - ProFootballTalk

The NFL Players Association says the Super Bowl champion Chiefs have dropped the ball on player health.The union’s report card for all 32 teams ranked the Chiefs dead last in training staff, giving them a grade of D- and saying that many players have major concerns with head trainer Rick...

profootballtalk.nbcsports.com

 

[BritCard]

Most deals in free agency aren’t closed in the first week, and more than 20 players move in free agency every year.

The marquee guys have deals in place, but the majority of players are shopping and being shopped up to and after the draft. This survey captures the opinions of those players more than the handful of marquee talent on the rosters.

So the top end guys are ok signing anywhere without seeing the facilities but the middle of the pack and tail end guys that are hanging around and desperate to get signed are super picky?

The survey does capture those players opinion more than the marquee guys although I'm not really sure what that has to do with players decision process prior to signing.

Still the vast majority of players don't visit before signing. Whether it's early or not. I think you know this and are just arguing for the sake of it.

 

[Stout]

It doesn't really surprise me that you don't get what a moderate, balanced opinion is.

Why is it that, in every thread, yours is the only moderate, balanced opinion? That everyone else is constructing straw men, ignoring your mountains of evidence, and simply being unreasonable? That yours is always the correct voice? Megalomania much?

 

[YorkshireCardinal]

The biggest one is the meals. You don't get an F just for charging for out of hours meals. The food quality must not be great either. That needs fixing. And while millionaires whining over being charged $5 for out of hours meals is peak BS it's also something Mike could easily not do in the grand scheme of things.

They ranked bottom for quality as well.

 

[schutd]

This thread sucks.

 

[kerouac9]

So the top end guys are ok signing anywhere without seeing the facilities but the middle of the pack and tail end guys that are hanging around and desperate to get signed are super picky?

Yeah, because the top-end guys have their own chefs and work out people and prolly don’t spend a lot of time around the facility anyway. Your JJ Watt types.

Midlevel guys aren’t going to break the bank, so marginal issues matter and add up. The Kelvin Beachum types.

We only hear about the guys who sign; we never hear about guys who say no (for obvious reasons).

Still the vast majority of players don't visit before signing.

You don’t have any evidence to support this. I’d guess it’s closer to 50/50.

I think you know this and are just arguing for the sake of it.

This is among the least self-aware posts I’ve seen on this board in some time.

 

[BritCard]

Why is it that, in every thread, yours is the only moderate, balanced opinion? That everyone else is constructing straw men, ignoring your mountains of evidence, and simply being unreasonable? That yours is always the correct voice? Megalomania much?

Because that's literally what you have done. There have been a dozen posts by you and others responding to things I haven't said. It's your MO. Strawmen, cheap shots, and attacking the poster.

Please, show me your balanced opinion where you have posted something reasonable taking in all aspects? Maybe you can post it together with the examples of me defending Bidwill I'm still waiting for?

This thread is full of "How terrible the private plane doesn't have as many lie flat seats as some of the commercial planes we took before" while completely ignoring they got a B+ for travel, tied 12th best. All the focus has been on what is likely one or two players negative comments while ignoring it also said "A lot of 1st class seats" in the comments.

We're not swimming in balanced opinion here. It's easy to spot because someone usually calls them a homer or burner account.

 

[JohnnyCakes]

You don't know anything about being an NFL player or comparative facilities. Why should your opinion matter in the least?

Perhaps they should consider you as a consultant? Clean up the aesthetics a bit?

My god - you JUST SAW A STUDY THAT SAYS IT LITERALLY DOES. The mental gymnastics here are fascinating.

A study?? hilarious.

 

[Ronin]

It doesn't really surprise me that you don't get what a moderate, balanced opinion is.

C'mon really? Was this necessary?

 

[BritCard]

Yeah, because the top-end guys have their own chefs and work out people and prolly don’t spend a lot of time around the facility anyway. Your JJ Watt types.

Yes JJ Watt is well known for his private chefs and not being around the facility. Famously he's collected by limo at lunch time to his home where his private chef has a 3 course meal waiting for him before the limo whisks him back for team meetings and never works out at the team facility. There are no videos of him ever doing that in the offseason.

Top end guys are training and eating at the facility like absolutely everyone else. How much you get paid doesn't get you special treatment. This is an insane take.

Midlevel guys aren’t going to break the bank, so marginal issues matter and add up. The Kelvin Beachum types.

It is so extremely marginal that the odds of all the more important things completely aligning with another offer are practically impossible. The things that would have to happen for "facilities" to factor in are inconceivable. You would need a player that considered facility quality more important that team, coaches, quarterback, tax, weather, distance to family, school quality, signing bonuses and guaranteed money in which case he has CTE and wouldn't pass the physical anyway.

We only hear about the guys who sign; we never hear about guys who say no (for obvious reasons).

We don't you're right. But we would, at some point. A throwaway comment after retirement while doing an interview or podcast. "You know, I nearly signed for the Cardinals in '09 but I saw the facilities and went with the Packers instead. If not for that I don't win the superbowl" or something like that.

If it's something that ever happened, especially with any kind of regularity, it would be something we have at least one example of. It would be something we recognised as a thing that happens sometimes and not just something made up in the last 48 hours.

You don’t have any evidence to support this. I’d guess it’s closer to 50/50.

"You don't have any evidence of that number. Here's my non evidential number to disprove it". Cool cool cool.

This is among the least self-aware posts I’ve seen on this board in some time.

This is some irony.