Failing facilities lead to new investment from Arizona Cardinals

The Arizona Cardinals low marks in the NFLPA Report Card has pushed ownership to invest.

The NFLPA report card may be the best thing that could happen to the Arizona Cardinals.

Sure, it makes it look like the franchise is not run well, but it also is the most public criticism from those within the company we can see.

So, when the grades came out this week, and it was bad, it made sense that the Cardinals dropped their first information on the $100 million plan to upgrade things.

Josh Weinfuss broke it down well:

– Arizona wasn’t planning on announcing the renovation on Wednesday but the NFLPA’s team report card pushed their hand a bit.

– The Cardinals are still in the very early phases of the project, as in I’ve heard ground hasn’t been broken yet.

– The team is acutely aware of where its deficiencies are: facilities. The grade for its cafeteria dropped from a D to a D-. Its locker room dropped from F to F-. The training room went from a C- to a D-. And the weight room from a C- to a F.

– As one source said to me, so many young players on the Cardinals roster are used to the luxurious facilities they came from in college, where they didn’t have to wait to use a machine in the weight room or could get custom meals.

– One young player last season told me it was “weird” to see the Cardinals’ facilities compared what he had in college.

It goes to something we have been discussing, that this is all reactionary, with little to no vision for the immediate or the future.

Again, the last update was a $15 million investment in 2015, for a building that was built in 1990.

Even the $100 million earmarked is going to be interesting to see how it is fleshed out.

For instance, are they spending $100 million on the practice facility? Think about the Georgia Bulldogs spending $80 million on their football facility, Oregon spending over $68 million on their facility.

So, will that money be towards the Tempe facility, or also used to create an actual locker room for the home team?

Of course, as we asked yesterday, who will even be around to reap the benefits of the upgrades? 2027 means at the Cardinals normal pace, they’ll have a new coach and a lot of roster turnover.

Hopefully the one positive on the Cardinals NFLPA grades, Jonathan Gannon is able to continue to be here and will see the improvements.