1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - NFLPA Grades Are OUT! Lets Break Them Down: February 27th, 1:00pm

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

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One-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. Boom, it is Friday here on one-on-one on 93-7. The ticket. I'm Jake Bachman. He is Jake Sorenson as we kick off this show.

It might not be here for long, Jake Sorens, but at least we'll get a little bit of your opinions as we get going here. Austin Ormond going to join me here shortly as well. But of course, D.P. out of town. Heads up to Adam Carrecker won't make it in today. So for the next two hours, it is going to be myself in Austin Orman.

And maybe whoever else we can crawl in here, because at least we got Jake in here. Jake, how are you doing? I'm good, Buck. It's always good when the Jake can reunite. That's right. I'm probably, you know, it feels like Adam is the only person that calls you Jake in here. That's right. Because you've always been balked to me, even in college. I knew you as

Bach. It was never Jake. So But we're together. It's good. Yeah. James unite. It does not happen often. So it is good when it does happen. And of course, you know,

whenever it happens, I at least have the chance to ask you about the latest in your dolphins. This being a good one, the NFLPA report cards came out. And despite the dolphins not being great on the field, they apparently are doing pretty good off the field. Does this do anything? I'm going to read something to you,

Bach, because I had a friend of mine text me about this yesterday. I responded to him about this. I'll read my response. So my friend, another Jake, texted me the screenshot of these rankings of the dolphins having a high accolades. Here's what I said. Here's why it's the best.

Massive overpaid contracts, less tax on said overpaid contracts because of the Florida tax policy. No expectation to win, warm weather year round, a cool stadium and practice area, and minimal complaining from people who are fans because they don't have any fans. That's why. That's why people love playing.

for the dolphins. That's a pretty good response. And it's hard to argue with some of those things. But why do I, Bach, why do I support this franchise? I guess someday, someday down the road, I hope it makes sense.

And I could just be, all this can be cleansed away. And it's going to be worth it. But it has not been worth it at all for 34 years of life. It's been terrible. Yeah. Well, Nebraska basketball is coming up. They're making you feel better about this.

You've done the same thing with Nebraska basketball. So you just, You just got a dream. It'll happen at some point for them. Of course, all these rankings, they do this every year, again, from the NFLPA. So coming kind of from inside the players actually rating this. And I can run through them. I'll give the rankings for the Dolphids specifically just because they're right there.

But mostly this is treatment of families, which they got a B plus home game field, A minus food and dining area. They got an A plus probably there. Nutritionist, a minus. Locker room, A minus. training room a training staff a weight room a plus they love it strength coaches a plus position coaches a minus office of coordinator a minus defense of coordinator a special teams coordinator b team travel a i don't know if they're grading the previous coach the coordinators

of that it's got to be a previous one kind of strange yeah gave anthony weaver then a b plus give me those rankings on the coaches uh coordinator officer coordinator a minus okay that was mike McDaniel who's the head coach. Head coach, by the way, got a B. It's probably too generous for him. Defense the coordinator A. That's too high for Anthony Weaver. I don't know if that's just

like he must have got along with, well, the players coach at least, maybe, if they're voting that. Special teams coordinator B. They were adequate. That's fine. I guess. General manager A minus. No. F! F! Stop. Who, who did? It's the list stops there. This list

is fraudulent. If, is Chris, if Chris Cruz get the A minus, you want to know why he's getting A minus box? Why is that? Because he paid these guys too much money. That's why they like him because he was nice. Now, how about performance by the GM, the guy that got these guys? These are guys that don't deserve to get these contracts or be in the NFL that are getting highly paid.

So, of course, they gave Miami great grades. At least they like the work. Again, for the survey, this was responses from 1,759 players, all the, players who were on the 2025 roster at the time. This was between November 2nd, December 11th. So the ending of the season are, you know, kind of all. So again, so again, no pressure of the postseason. You're living in warm Miami.

Yeah, they're in great moods because they're either staying where it's warm or traveling to where it's warmer and going back to the warmth of Miami and not somewhere cold like Green Bay or Chicago or Pittsburgh. The dolphins need to get off the high ratings in here. They've been this the last couple of years like tops in the league. Yeah. And it's done them jack crap. doesn't make you feel any better.

I don't want to be highly ready for it to be 4 and 13. Screw that. It is strange. As you look at the top rated teams of who it to play for, they're not the most successful franchise, though some of them are. The dolphins were number one. The Vikings were second.

They've had good, I mean, they were bad last year. They won 14 games the previous year. So I get that. Commanders were third, kind of similar type of situation. Seahawks' fourth,

obviously they were both. And Jaguar's fifth, who came up at the end, did pretty well. Shad Khan, the owner there. Yeah. It's warm weather, Buck. That's two of those, two of the five are in Florida, where it's nice weather and low expectations to win.

You think Jacksonville fans are at him about winning? Yeah, it's the only team in town for pro, but guess what? They said half their games to London anyways. That's right. So how much they really care in Jacksonville about that team. Tough to say. I mean, they don't have a fan base rating on here. That would be kind of interesting.

Oh, I'd like to see that. On the opposite end of the report card are by Arizona card. at 31. The Cleveland Browns just ahead of them at 30th. And the Pittsburgh Steelers came in at 32nd. So we went through all the A's of the Miami Dolphins might as well go through the Steelers to show you the complete option.

The Steelers, Buck, are a consistent team that's over 500. So that's what I'm saying. Would I rather be number one and be 5 and 12 and 4 and 13? Or would I rather be 10 and 7, occasionally 11 and 6, maybe 9 and 8? Like Pittsburgh always is. Well,

again, depends on if you're playing for the team a fan of the team. Pittsburgh Steelers, treatment of families. F. The players voted, no. Home game field. F minus. Apparently, it can get worse than a half. The field is pretty bad there.

Yeah, I do like Heinz feel as a stadium altogether, but yeah. Food dining, they got blown up during Batman. I don't know how they were able to say that. That's amazing. Quick recovery there, Bob. Food and dining area, B minus. So good job, Pittsburgh there. They like that. They like the nutritionist, Dietician B.

Bs are good for this list for the for the Steelers. Locker room, F minus. Do not like it. I want to see an F minus locker. I just want to see what that looks like. Training room C, training staff B plus, weight room B, strength coaches B minus, position coaches B. Office of coordinator B plus.

Did not like the defense coordinator. You got to see. Special teams quarter A minus team travel F. Yeah, it's got to be ugly when treatment of families and team travel comes in at F. That's not good. Head coach to give an A. Of course. Okay, well, let's pause for a second. Okay, we talk about travel. The dolphins get high grades because

they live in a bougie city. That it's all about clubs and living the dream of the warm weather and Pittsburgh is, you know, pretty much blue-collar, white-collar city. It's tough. They're proud. They're proud of being tough. Pennsylvania in general is a

tough state. I don't think they live in luxury there, Bach. It's not a kind of way. You sign up for that. You sign up for a physical tough team that plays in the cold, plays a brand of football that they always have, and the dolphins just over here just living in glamour because they have no reason to win because why would we, we're already in paradise and set for life.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I get it. Again, there's much, there's easy, easy argument about whether you'd want to live in Miami or Pittsburgh, and I think that probably reflects in these writings. By the way, Pittsburgh's general manager C plus team ownership D-minus, which is not good. so that puts them at 30 second. I'm always interested.

You at least get a peek into what the, what the players feel in the NFL about working for these different teams. For my, my Cardinals for what it's worth. F minus locker room. They're right up there with, I don't understand.

It's a nice stadium, but they do have a nice stadium. I don't know what they did in the locker room. Team ownership gets an F. Treatment of families gets D plus. So, treatment of family stands out more than anything. Yeah, it's a nice stadium.

It's a nice stadium, Bach, but you got to be better. I'm checking out. Check it out. Austin's in. Thanks. Boston. And yeah, thanks for jumping in.

Going from a Dolphins fan, now to a cold span, Austin. Nominal. Nominal. We were talking about the NFLPA and their rankings of basically the teams that they play for altogether. And we mentioned it, the top teams on this list. That's why I brought up with sorts. And the dolphins are number one. The Vikings second, commander's third, Seahawks, fourth, and Jaguars fifth.

at the bottom we've got the Steelers, Arizona Cardinals coming at 31st and the Browns coming at 30th. Now I'm looking to see and I like to get, I just, it's fun to do this with people in their team. So looking for the Colts here. We can go through their list now and see if any of this surprised you. Treatment of families, B. Yeah, fine.

So it's whatever. Yeah. Home game field, D. Yeah, that one I don't completely understand. I haven't, I didn't think that Lucas Oil was that bad of a plane. surface. I didn't hear those complaints from players in the Big Ten championship game. You know, when I think

about complaints of home field, I think about like MetLife up there for the Giants and the Jets primarily. And the Giants got an F-minus for their field. I'm trying to find the Jets wherever they are. Also an F-minus, yeah, worst field there. So, you know, it's turf. It's also been

you know, uses a multi-purpose kind of building. It's not just football. They have all sorts of events in there. So I'm sure there is some pretty hard concrete underneath that that maybe doesn't make it the best. But I guess I hadn't heard any of those major complaints from Colts players. Yeah. Well, now you can put it on your list of things you've heard before. I guess.

They did not reflect well here. Food and dining area, B, nutritious, dietitian, A, might as it's hard to speak on those things. And saying almost is across the street. So if they don't like it, they can always go somewhere else. There you go. Locker room C plus. I'd never been in there. So, okay.

Yeah. Training room and training staff, B and B plus respectively, weight room B. All pretty good there. Yeah, adequate. They love the strength and coach, strength coaches. That's what really stood out to me is if you look at the strength coaches. So they did that on the GPA scale, right, of zero to four. Strength coaches across the league had the highest overall grade at 3.7.

In the lowest grade, I'm seeing a B minus in Pittsburgh, Arizona. Yeah, those are the only two. Those are the low grades. Yeah, those are the lowest grades. A B minus for the strength coaches. That's what really stood out to me. Dudes must just love their strength coaches in the NFL. Yeah.

Tip of the cap to those guys. I aimed for B minuses when I wasn't the brightest, but Bs and Cs get degrees, as they say. Position coaches for the, for the Colts as well, just coaches in general, basically Bs across the board, some B pluses in there as well. Head coach got an A minus though. Yeah. I think the players generally like Shane Steichen. I think you can certainly question some of his decisions that he's made, but what head coach can't you do that for?

I mean, Shane Steichen, I don't think, is in, you know, the upper echelon of NFL coaches, but I think he's a good enough schemer. I do think, you know, he's a little quirky, but I do think he connects with the locker room and they play for the guy. So, I believe that Stuyken's a name minus. It's weird, too, when we're talking about the Swarckon, his team travel gets a B-minus. Is that just having to travel out of Indianapolis, like, you know, the weather-wise? I mean, that could always cause problems, but if you're playing in a, you know,

Florida somewhere, it might be easier to travel. Well, maybe my guess is that it's how they're treated, like what the amenities on the plane are, how much space they have is my read on that. Because if you look at some of the other teams, like Indian Apples and Buffalo, not exactly the same climate they end up with the same grade, right? Chicago and in New York end up with the same grade. Why is there an F for flying out of Philly? Why is there a D minus for flying out of Kansas City or Cleveland? Like maybe it's weather related, but if you're complaining about the weather or the travel that's, you know, more a city complaint. It's kind of hard for the team to control that, which is where I would assume the team travel grade would be more, you know, what kind of meals are provided on the planes. How much legroom do we have? Are we, you know, sharing, you know, a row of three or just a row of two with enough space, you know, to walk around. How often is Russell Wilson up stretching in the aisle, that sort of thing? Yeah, that sort of thing. I do, I do. I think that's probably got a big factor in that. Of course, they got an A for general management and team ownership, though. That always goes

a long ways. So the Colts coming at 17th. Perfectly mid, just like them. Yes. You did it. Way to go. That is pretty much exactly where they've been. You know,

they are the eight and nine franchise. They are the nine and eight franchise. How dare you suggest they get to 10 and seven? That is one step too good. How dare you suggest they fall to seven and 10? No, that is one step too far. Yes, 17th is perfect. Right there on the top of the bottom half of the rankings.

Good job, Colts. You did it. You are exactly who I thought. you were. What's the latest on Daniel Jones? Are they, is there reports are getting close to a deal or going to let them walk? It seems like they won him back and they're willing to trade Anthony Richardson.

That was the story yesterday that the Jay and I went over. So I think Daniel Jones is the quarterback of at least the near future for Indy. No deal yet. I'm curious to see how the Colts manage this offseason because Daniel Jones is a guy that I think Minnesota would want back as well, given the way they talked about him and his time there. Minnesota, of course, also talked about as a potential trade partner with the viral social media moment from Kevin O'Connell and Anthony Richardson from a couple seasons ago now. But I think that, funny enough, there's more competition for Alec Pierce than there is for Daniel

Jones, and the Colts can only franchise tag one of those guys. You got to get a deal with one. You got a franchise tag one. and I think it's probably easier to get a deal done with Jones just because of relatively the lack of demand. But that's going to be a pretty big number. If you decide to work out a deal with Alec Pierce, it's going to have to be competitive for the market to keep him there. On top of how expensive the franchise tag is going to be

for a guy like Daniel Jones just because of the nature of the salary at the quarterback position. So I think they're in a bit of a holding. pattern. I'm sure there are conversations going on. And I do expect Daniel Jones to take the opening snap for the Colts coming up here in in 2026. I don't know how well it's going to go. Maybe they are the NFL's best team with them at the helm. Maybe that's true. But between the Michael Pittman Jr. contract, it's like Franklin contract, everything else going on with Anthony Richardson. Curious to see where some of this money comes from to get one of it or if not both of those guys

back in the building. Yeah, it certainly is interesting to follow, especially as we all know, quarterbacks don't come up in free agency, at least ones that you want too often. So obviously franchise tagging, you're going to pay a premium for the year, but kind of puts the problem off down. And, you know, you get kind of try it out. See if you want to keep it rolling. But, yeah, so it'll be very interesting as we, we could talk about franchise tags here down the line.

I didn't want to finish up with these grades just so, you know, everybody's got their teams out there. So I want to give the highlights and low lights of each game real quick. Which are more fun. The highlights or the low light. I think the low lights. I'm mostly looking for low lights here, but there are some teams without F,

so I suppose I'll throw those out. I mentioned my Cardinals here. Low lights, they finished 31st in these rankings. Locker room F minus, training room D plus, weight room D plus, team ownership F,

treatment of families D plus. That's pretty tough. We don't like you. We don't like your wives. We don't like your kids. And heaven forbid, you tried to get a parent ticket or anything like that, not happening.

Yes. That's, again, that's, that's unfortunately my team, but that's about as low as it can get as the Cardinals finished next to last. Hey, hey, they like that game field, though. Yeah, that's always good. Maybe I should do it. The game field, at least should mention in these as well. They did get a B.

Moving on to the Falcons, they finished overall eighth. Their own game field, a C minus. They didn't have any Fs on this. Team ownership got an A. I mean, there's plenty of other things in there that got an A, but I think that's kind of the highlight for them. If you're a Ravens fan, they finish 12th A plus and team ownership. So that's always helpful.

Home game field also got an A. Again, when you finish high in these rankings, plenty of A's across the board. That's where the Ravens landed. The bills at 16th, middle of the pack. We mentioned early home game field gets an F. Some of the coaches. But not an F minus. Not an F minus, yes.

Which is true. There is a distinction of that on these grades. So that's not the word. It's up, you know, I don't know if you would go. go home feeling too bad about that. Team ownership, general manager, both get an A minus there. The Carolina Panthers come in at 23rd.

Home game field, F, but not an F minus, as you pointed out. General manager gets an A, team ownership B minus. Chicago Bears, very interesting, how long they'll be Chicago moving forward. Home game field gets a C. Yes, we're talking about that.

But team ownership gets an A minus. They finish 13th. Which is interesting because ownership is been the complaint for a lot of Bears fans, right? What are, where are the Hallis is and what are the McClassies doing? You know, there's Yankan Bears fans hopes around to and from, right? They get in the stadium in Arlington Heights. Is it going to Hammond, Indiana, whatever the heck? I thought that ownership had been the complaints for Bears fans, but this is for the players. So, you know, if this is a Bears fan survey, I'm sure that would be a C-minus at best.

But that this is the players, I think that's, you know, a good sign that, okay, yeah, we're taking care of our players. We're taking their needs into account. And sure, a stadium is, part of that. But it does seem like, you know, at least internally, the culture must be fine. Yeah, yeah. Good job, Kevin Warren. Yeah, great job. Again, we're doing through with the NFLPA grades, team by team, just kind of the highlights and low lights. The bagels finished 28th team ownership D plus, home game field D minus. Treatment of families, F minus, no, no F minus, dining room area, F minus nutrition, dietitian. Gets an F.

I don't even know how do they have a job if that's the case. They must not for much longer. Or, I mean, this is, you're talking about Cincinnati, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's a notoriously cheap franchise who doesn't even buy, you know, the three meals a day or provide three meals a day, which I know isn't necessarily standard across, but that has been a complaint about Cincinnati for a long time.

Anywhere they can save money, they will. So it's probably just nutritionist saying, yeah, you're a grown man. You know what you can eat, right? You know, you've done this before. Yeah, you got it. Go get them. I remember, was it Cincinnati Bearcads? They're just making a new practice facility, I think, last year.

And they were bragging it was going to be better than the Bengals, which, again, to know, no one's surprise. The Browns finished 30th in this rank. So a lot of low lights here, treatment of families, D minus. Surprisingly, no Fs in finishing 30th. Okay, locker room. Yeah. Locker room gets an F. General manager team ownership gets a C.

Ooh, interesting. Again, from the players. You know, with Andrew Barry, there's GM and of course the Haslam family and ownership, that's a group that's taken a lot of flack from the outside in and, you know, see they're fine, according to the players. And, you know, I think fans would certainly push back on that. But that's another one that you would have thought the grade that the fans would give them would be, you know, bottoming out. but hey, maybe Miles Garrett carries a lot of weight.

Hey, guys, they paid me. We're good, right? You can give them a higher grade. Well, it's interesting because you do have these like long-term owners. And I can speak specifically with the Cardinals and the Midwells. That just, you know, obviously you're not going to get a good grade for the long, long haul. But for players that are in there for three or four years, yeah, you might not have too much of a bad thing to say. The Cowboys finished 22nd in this poll.

Head coach gets an A-minus. Nothing too much standing out here. training room gets a D. Again, with the franchise tag, we mentioned they're going to franchise tag George Pickens. Yeah. So that should be interesting as well. We'll break that down here in a little bit.

Broncos get a rank of 10th, A plus for team ownership, A for general manager, home game field gets an A. Treatment of Facilities gets a B. The low light seems to be the locker room with a D. It's really funny when you look at some of these highly graded teams because the D for the locker room in Denver really stands out and maybe there is just a big old capital D in the locker room, which is, you know, maybe it's more symbolic grade than an actual grade, I don't know.

But between the, the D for the locker room given to Denver, the F for the home game field given to Seattle, that's just weird. Like you have A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, A, B plus A, A, A, F. Yeah. And then Denver, A, B, A, A, B, A, A, B, A, D, A, A, A, A, D, A, A, Yeah. Like, really, that's the one thing. Is it really that bad? Like, maybe it's one of those things that's, all relative. Like, it's probably fine for the rest of the league, but compared to the way everything

else is in this organization, man, this is one thing that we all hate. It's just kind of funny to see those, those outliers. And of course, you get further down the scale, the further down the rankings you go. But to see just those random standout grades in the top 10 in a negative light, when pretty much no one else has those. It's just kind of funny to flash across your radar. Well, it's so interesting, too, like an NFL locker room compared to like a college locker room, right? I mean, that's kind of the facilities race and you try to, you, you know, try to glamour and wow the players as they come in. You know, how many of these locker rooms are just like,

like, you guys are all million. Just let's have a functional locker room and we can spend the money elsewhere and then you get maybe get a bad grade on it, you know. Right. Or just like comparative to somebody else that would put a bunch of money in and then you're comparing it to other places around the league. And then it's not great. Right.

And that's something I'm going to ask Jane now on the show is, you know, for these teams to have a low locker room grade, what does that go into, right? You have the thing, I think, from the Steelers, was it, that, you know, they only have like five bathroom stalls for the whole team. Okay. You can probably upgrade the plumbing a little bit, I would think, you know, when, when nature calls, nature calls and what have you.

But I'd be curious to know, you know, how much time are these guys spending in the locker room? Is this like a locker size issue? Is this a, the layout's weird and it's hard to get around? Is it a locker room culture? I don't know because I would think that you spend enough time there that you want it to be nice. but are these guys complaining about, you know,

not having like 17 playstations in there? Or is it like too cramped? Do you have to share lockers? I'd be really curious to know like what the complaints are. Yeah. Oh, and then, you know, a lot of it too is when you're doing it for your own team, right? Do you, you know, it's just what, what is your mindset going into that, right? Are you, right?

Are you happy with your contract? Are you like leaning toward, yeah, everything's fine. I'll give it an A or whatever. Or are you, you know, going to be pretty, have you been well travel? Are you going to be able to compare it to some of the other stops? I think it's very interesting. And some of these guys coming from college, too, with the way some of those locker rooms are set up.

Like, if rookies have input, how is my college locker room better than my pro locker room? I'm sure that's a thought in there, some points. Yeah, interesting stuff. Lions come in at ninth team ownership, A, general manager A minus home field. B, the worst thing is a offensive coordinator at C plus. Packers come in at 21st.

team ownership a minus general manager B plus home game field C plus. I like the all the snow. Yeah. It'll be it. Yeah. At times. Yeah. Houston Texans come in at seventh team ownership a general manager a.

A lot of A's on this. Worst one is home game field at C plus. That's Jay about that one. Probably what led to his early exit from the NFL. That's right. But let's let's take a look at this here, Bach. Okay. We can piece this together.

Okay. So Jay starts his career in Buffalo. Field gets an F. Jay goes to Houston. field gets a C plus. Jay goes to New York, fuel gets an F-minus. Uh-oh.

Yeah, that's where he's done. Fock. Fock. Jay has standing. Yeah, should have stayed with the Texans, I guess. We did the Colts Jaguars fifth. Team ownership, A, general manager, a minus.

A lot of A's across the board here. Where is his position coaches, but it's a C? Yeah, I mean, young staff, obviously with Liam Cohen. So not shocking that a first-time head coach, his weakness could be his position coaches, but whatever they did seem to work.

It seems like they brought the best out of most of that roster. Trevor Lawrence didn't have too much of a problem with his quarterback coach. It didn't seem. Let's go ahead and take a break here. We've got the Kansas City Chiefs coming up next. I know there's a lot of Chiefs fans. We'll go through every one of their grades and they get back to just kind of generalizing a lot of these teams on the other end of the break.

I love this. I love when these reports come out. They're so fun. Especially when they're not supposed to. Is this still not supposed to come out yet? the report cards. Yeah. No, they were, no, the, the, the NFL sued the NFL PA.

Oh, okay. To put this kind of under an embargo. Like, you can do it, but you can't release the results to the public. Oh. And yet here it is still getting leaked. It's great. Love it. I did not know that.

That makes it even, yeah, even better. I love that. All right. We'll be back with more NFL grades on one-on-one on 93-7 a ticket. Download our app by searching 93.7 a ticket in your app store. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 93-7. of a ticket and the ticketfm.com.