SAN ANTONIO – What does it take to win a Super Bowl?
It takes a lot of really good players, a coaching staff that can bring out the best in those players and an organization willing to pay for bringing in good players and good coaches.
The Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans have one thing in common this century: neither franchise has won or been on the doorstep of playing in a Super Bowl.
Despite the lack of on-field success, how do players rate their experiences playing for the Cowboys and Texans? Surprisingly, pretty well.
Report cards? What is this, grade school?
The National Football League Players Association released its second-ever team report cards for the 2023 season on Wednesday. According to NFLPA president and Cleveland Browns center J.C. Tretter, the report cards serve as a kind of “‘Free Agency Guide’ that would illuminate what the daily experience is for players and their families at each team.”
Response for last year’s report cards was modest. Tretter said more than 1,300 players, or approximately 60% of the league, participated in the survey. The team surveys seemingly made a positive impact league-wide because 1,706 active players, or 77% of the league, filled out responses this year.
The players evaluated their own organization by several key factors: its treatment of players’ families, food/cafeteria quality, nutritionist/dietician quality, locker room conditions, training room conditions, weight room conditions, training staff capabilities, quality of the team’s strength coaches, travel accommodations, quality of each head coach and quality of each owner.
Each player assigned a letter grade ranging from an A+ grade, indicating the very best a team has to offer, to an F- grade, indicating the very worst a team has to offer.
How did the Dallas Cowboys do?
Owner Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys may seem like they only care about keeping a moderately good football team in the headlines, but this year’s survey indicates that, for the most part, Cowboy players like playing for the Cowboys.
Dallas checked in at No. 12 overall out of 32 in the survey. Players highlighted the team’s facilities (locker room: A; weight room: A) and head coach Mike McCarthy (grade A) as a person players enjoy playing for. They also indicated how well the organization treats players’ families (grade A-), the quality of its strength coaches (grade B+) and how food and dieting best suits each player (food/cafeteria quality: B, nutritionist/dietician: B).
Cowboys weren’t exactly enthusiastic about everything the team provided. Two areas in need of serious improvement are the organization’s training room (grade C-) and training staff, whose D+ grade is tough to stomach. According to the survey, only 62% of Cowboy respondents felt they received enough one-on-one treatment from the training staff.
Traveling on the road appears to be another headache for Cowboy players. Only 72% of players felt they had “a comfortable amount of personal space during flights,” the survey said. Additionally, the Cowboys are one of seven NFL teams that require some players to have roommates the night before a game.
Dallas lost all five of its regular season games on the road in 2023. Maybe there’s a connection here.
How did the Houston Texans do?
The start of the 2020s did anything but roar for the Houston Texans, who rolled off an impressively futile run of four different head coaches in the first three seasons of the decade.
However, it looks like the franchise may be turning a corner. The Texans hired DeMeco Ryans to be its head coach, drafted a quarterback in C.J. Stroud who might be on the verge of superstardom and qualified for the AFC Divisional Round of the playoffs this past season.
Based on the survey, the Texans came in at No. 7 overall out of 32 teams. Players offered rave reviews of the team’s cafeteria food (grade A-) and dietary advice (grade A-). The survey said that the Texans are the only team in the NFL that “had every player feel they received an individualized plan from their dietician.”
The aforementioned Ryans, a former Houston Texan player, showed himself to be a cerebral coach players wouldn’t mind going into the trenches for (grade A-).
The training room and training staff were also a source of pride for players. Over 90% of players felt the team had enough full-time trainers, enough full-time physical therapists, enough hot tub space, enough cold tub space and received enough one-on-one treatment. One area for improvement: Players would like to see the team add a sauna and/or steam room, which according to the survey, are both “standard at nearly every other facility in the League.”
Texans players who responded to the survey did not grade any category listed as anything worse than a B-.
What the survey can do
There has been some positive organizational change caused by the NFLPA releasing its report card information to players and the public. The Jacksonville Jaguars’ overall grade was ranked 28th out of 32 last year, in part, due to players reporting a rat infestation at EverBank Stadium, the team’s home stadium. This year, the Jaguars’ grade jumped to fifth overall after the team upgraded its facilities over the last calendar year.
On the other hand, great on-field success isn’t always the best indicator of a well-run organization. Players ranked the Kansas City Chiefs, who earlier this month won their third Super Bowl title in the last five years, 31st overall out of 32. According to the survey, head coach Andy Reid was voted as the lone positive while players lamented the team’s lack of “quality care” and “out-of-date facilities.”
If the survey is teaching a lesson, the lesson is: What you see might not be what you get.
A full list of letter grades and rankings for each NFL team can be found here.
Copyright 2024 by KSAT – All rights reserved.
DALLAS — The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have scored a salary touchdown.
The new season of the Netflix docuseries “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” includes the women getting a pay raise.
“‘Happy’ isn’t even the right word for it. It kind of felt like a relief, like everything had paid off,” former cheerleader Jada McLean said. “And finally, we were done fighting.”
Netflix bills the series as viewers get to “Follow the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders from auditions to training camp and the NFL season as they chase their dreams and a coveted spot on the squad.”
During the first season, the audience learned that because of the low pay many of cheerleaders had to work second jobs. The women have advocated for more money for years.
“Our efforts were heard, and they wanted to give us a raise,” Megan McElaney, a four-year veteran of the team, said. “And we ended up getting a 400% increase, which is, like, life-changing.”
The Dallas Cowboys have long been called America’s team, and according to Forbes magazine, the franchise has “been the most valuable pro sports team in the world for almost a decade,” as reported by Associated Press.
Season 2 of “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” is currently streaming on Netflix.
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders have gained a significant victory … something the NFL team they work for hasn’t done in a while.
Arguably the most famous cheerleaders in the world, it traditionally hasn’t been a high-paying job. In 2019, the Cowboys settled a lawsuit with a former cheerleader that led to the squad doubling the per-game pay from $200 to $400.
That’s a 100% increase, but the cheerleaders are about to get a much larger bump in pay … 400%.
That’s according to a member of the squad, who revealed the pay raise during an episode of the Netflix series “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.”
“Our efforts were heard and they wanted to give us a raise,” four-year veteran Megan McElaney said on the show. “And we ended up getting a 400% increase, which is like, life-changing.”
It seems like the raise shouldn’t put too much of a dent into the wallet of team owner Jerry Jones. The Cowboys are worth an estimated $10.1 billion, making them not only the most valuable team in the NFL, but also the world’s most valuable sports team.
The cheerleaders have been a fixture on the Cowboys’ sidelines since 1961. The squad saw its fame explode in the 1970s when former General Manager Tex Schramm had the squad begin wearing a more revealing uniform and begin performing dance routines, a departure from traditional cheerleading.
The cheerleaders have toured the world as part of USO shows, have appeared on TV shows and had a made-for-TV movies released in 1979 and 1980.
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
Another week, another D-FW classical music competition.
Tuesday night, just a week and a half after the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition named its winners in Fort Worth, the Dallas International Violin Competition presented its three finalists in concert at Moody Performance Hall, then announced their prizes.
The $2,500 first prize went to American violinist Laurel Gagnon, currently studying at the Yale University School of Music. The prize also includes a future solo engagement with the Dallas Chamber Symphony, which presented the competition.
The $1,500 second prize and $500 audience choice award went to Hong Kong native Hiu Sing Fan, who’s pursuing a doctor of musical arts degree at Northwestern University.
The $1,000 third prize was awarded to Alice Lee, a Canadian studying at New England Conservatory.
In the concert, each of the finalists played a violin concerto with the Chamber Symphony, led by guest conductor Peter Bay, music director of the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Gagnon performed the Brahms concerto, Fan and Lee the Sibelius.
The biennial competition is open to violinists 18 to 35. From applications and video recordings, 16 violinists were selected for the in-person competition. The first two rounds were held June 12 and 13 at the Murchison Performing Arts Center at the University of North Texas in Denton.
Each quarterfinalist performed a violin concerto with piano accompaniment, after which nine semifinalists performed recitals of unaccompanied solo violin works. A jury of three professional violinists/teachers picked contestants for each round.
It’s impressive that even a newer and lower-visibility competition could attract players of such technical authority and interpretive sophistication as the three heard Tuesday. Different listeners might have ranked them very differently.
All three occasionally overdid gruff bowings of fortissimo double-stops, at least for a 700-seat hall about one-third the size of most orchestra halls. This bothered me more in the Brahms, where it’s better to err on the side of reserve. And for me Gagnon’s choice of the over-the-top Fritz Kreisler cadenza overloaded the concerto.
But she’s an accomplished and expressive musician, and after Bay and the orchestra — principal oboist Elise Belk especially — eloquently introduced the slow movement, Gagnon tapped right into their timing and tapered phrases. The finale was a little more deliberate than I was expecting, but Brahms does qualify his “happy allegro” marking with “but not too lively.”
Both Fan and Lee delivered Sibelius’ scurries, double-stops and leaps into high pianissimos with impressive assurance, but differently. Not for Lee the Nordic cool often heard in the piece — hers was a passionate account, by turns earthy and ethereal, with considerable freedom in the built-in cadenza. Fan’s Sibelius was more conventionally cool, with a fine focus throughout.
With wind and brass sections as large as would be deployed in a 2,000-seat hall, although far fewer strings, Bay had his work cut out to keep the orchestra in balance. Apart from an occasional spot when flutes and clarinets or horns were a little too prominent, he and the players maintained impressive equilibrium. Always attuned to the soloists, Bay shaped the music securely and sensitively.
This would have been a good opportunity to ask the audience not to applaud after every movement, as it did Tuesday. And prolonged late seating during the slow movement of Lee’s Sibelius was unfortunate.
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