Getty Image / Gregory Shamus
The Kansas City Chiefs won their second-straight Super Bowl last month in an overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. You’d expect everything to be going great inside the league’s most successful organization currently, but that’s not the case.
The Chiefs got poor marks from their players in many categories during the second-annual NFLPA team report cards. In fact, they were second-worst in the league, only ahead of Washington, a franchise still recovering from Dan Snyder’s past ownership.
What was the biggest issue? According to reports at the time, players felt like they were promised a renovated locker room after the 2022 season, only to return to some minor changes. It was far from a renovation.
Even after a Super Bowl where guys are getting to win a lot, they still value things like a modern locker room. Members of the Chiefs, understandably, felt betrayed. They gave the team’s facilities an F-
But, team owner Clark Hunt claims it was all a misunderstanding. Here’s The Athletic with more.
The most damning information from the Chiefs’ report card was the players’ complaints about the facility’s outdated locker room, the place where they spend hours, sometimes six days a week. The report said players believed the locker room would be renovated after the 2022 season and before the start of last season. That promise, the report said, was not kept by Hunt and the Chiefs.
“The answer (the players) got back was, ‘You guys won too far in the (2022) playoffs, and we didn’t have time to fix it,’” former NFLPA president J.C. Tretter said last month at the NFL Scouting Combine. “They just won another Super Bowl. I know there’s some frustration of, ‘We keep winning Super Bowls and nothing is coming back to us. There’s no priority on making our lives better, but we kept making the organization more money.’
“That’s reflected in their results. That’s why (Hunt’s) grade is so low.”
However, Hunt denied that part of the report.
“I have spoken to some of our veteran players about that, and they’ve confirmed to me that it was miscommunication,” Hunt said. “Certainly, I personally never said anything to them about a renovation of the locker room. It was a misunderstanding.”
The backdrop to all of this is a huge vote coming up for the Chiefs next week. On April 2, Jackson County residents will head to the polls to decide if an extension to a local sales tax will happen, with some of the money generated helping to renovate Arrowhead Stadium ahead of its lease expiration in 2031. The Kansas City Royals would also benefit as they get set to build a new ballpark in downtown Kansas City.
For now, it seems like Clark Hunt would be well-served to get on the same page as his players regarding upgrades they want to see in the team’s facilities ahead of their attempt to pull off the first-ever Super Bowl three-peat next season.