Buffalo Rumblings
The NFLPA report card is out, and the Bills failed miserably.
The Buffalo Bills came in 23rd in the NFLPA’s anonymous report cards ranking every organization. By far the biggest reason for that were the team’s travel schedule and flight accommodations where the Bills finished 32 of 32 with an F-minus — dead last in the NFL.
Luckily, we didn’t just get rankings, as the NFLPA distilled lots of information and shared findings.
“35% of the Bills players feel they have a comfortable amount of personal space on team flights,” according to the NFLPA. That was 32nd of the 32 teams in the NFL.
That’s apparently exacerbated by the fact that coaches and auxiliary staff sit in first class while the players are regulated to the back of the plane despite the players asking for a change. Last year, it was 45% of the team, so there has been a significant uptick in dissatisfaction.
The Bills do fly on commercial airplanes, as most NFL teams do. The New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals have their own private planes and configure the seats however they want.
The travel schedule dissatisfaction comes after a pretty easy travel season, respectively. The Bills did have two trips to the West Coast, but no international travel in 2024 and they hosted two of their three playoff games. Where in years past they had to shift travel unexpectedly because of snow storms in Buffalo, that didn’t happen this year.
In 2023, the Bills left for London on a Friday to play a Sunday morning game and complained of jet lag and not having enough time to adjust.
It feels like there are some easy fixes here, but the Bills haven’t completed them despite coming in 25th last year with a D grade.
