Washington Commanders Announce Hires Addressing Troubling NFLPA Survey Issues

The NFLPA's survey of players exposed some clear issues within the Washington Commanders organization.

There's a natural desire to want or even expect drastic turnarounds when a new owner takes over a struggling business the way Josh Harris and his group did with the Washington Commanders.

Even with the old coaching staff plus assistant head coach and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy around the simple act of Harris being installed as the managing partner of the Commanders sparked immediate excitement.

So much so you'd think Harris himself was strapping on the pads and making plays instead of sitting high atop the Washington hierarchy plotting moves to ensure the future progresses from the low altitude base camp he was starting at.

Dec 3, 2023; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris before the game

Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

In some senses, there was nowhere to go but up for Harris and his group of partner owners, but that doesn't make the climb any less steep. Something that was put on full display when the NFLPA released their second annual survey of players and the Commanders came up at the very bottom with an overall grade of 'F-'.

Harris had already promised action to improve every layer of the organization, and at the annual league meetings in Orlando earlier this month vowed to make the best of a bad situation.

On Monday, Washington announced the latest efforts to improve the organization hiring a new direcotor of rehabilitation and senior physical therapist/assistant athletic trainer.

"(The Commanders have) named Ryan Juarez as the team’s director of rehabilitation and Jamal Randall Sr. as the team’s senior physical therapist/assistant athletic trainer," the team announced. "Both Juarez and Randall Sr. will report to senior director of player health and performance Tim McGrath.

"With the additions of both Juarez and Randall Sr., Washington has formed their new Rehabilitation Unit. This unit is a newly dedicated and streamlined process which will work in collaboration with the performance department and is designed to coordinate the rehab process for injured players in the most effective way possible. This function will play a vital role in return to play decision-making."

“Yeah, I'm not an 'F-' guy," Harris said earlier this month in response to the NFLPA grades. "It's clearly something that we're focused on....You want to be a place that everyone says ‘that's a great place to be,’ and therefore we need to upgrade that facility and we are upgrading that facility...Everything we can do right now to make our players feel great about coming to work, feel comfortable, feel well taken care of, we're going to do.”

Upgrading the facilities includes ensuring the staff working with and in the current accomodations are the best the organization can have.

These new hires should help address two of the areas players were most concerned about, and in terms of a business where availability is the most important ability of them all, should also help the team stay as competitive as possible while accurately balancing the health of their players with the need to be on the field.

It's not the kind of move that will grab headlines like a new video board or better parking, but it's something that those impacted directly will certainly appreciate, and its just the latest effort by Harris and the Commanders to return the franchise back to the top where it once stood on every level, and seeks to stand again in the near future.