It may not show up in the win-loss column, but Arthur Blank is one of the best owners in the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons have not amounted to much success in Blank's over two decades owning the team, but he's beloved by every single person who enters the facility: players, coaches, fans, and more.
Blank is one of the most respected owners in all of football, and the NFLPA's report cards proved that. The report cards saw organizations be graded by their players on a variety of factors within their organization, which saw Blank be one of just three owners to receive an A+ grade last report card.
However, those report cards, which have been published since 2023 are no more. Due to a grievance filed by the NFL, the results from the NFLPA report cards are no longer allowed to be published, as it was found that publicizing the findings was a violation of the NFL's collective bargaining agreement.
The Falcons came in at third overall in last season's report card, so they were one of the teams that stood to benefit from the NFLPA implementing this. There isn't a lot of bad you can say about Blank, but he deserves to be recognized as a top-notch owner whether it's through this report card or not.
Arthur Blank is one of the few owners who has something to lose from the end of the NFLPA report cards
Reports have surfaced that New York Jets owner Woody Johnson is the reason for the ban. In large part due to Johnson, the Jets have been one of the most poorly-graded organizations in the NFL, and in the final public iteration of the report cards, he was the only owner who received an "F" grade.
If you ask me, this is a decision directly designed to protect the disliked owners like Johnson from receiving any more scrutiny. He is someone who is known to hate being criticized or forced to take any sort of accountability, so his logic in pushing back against this is to avoid any additional criticism.
Woody is someone whose ego can't being challenged, so what's it matter if these report cards stick around? It's not like Jets fans can hate him any more than they already do. His team has a better chance of going 17-0 than seeing their fearless leader using this criticism to make actual changes.
Whether you like it or not, these report cards should be public. Not only does it challenge both good and bad owners to listen to their players and make genuine change to their organizational structure, it praises the owners like Blank who are actually doing things right and running their teams correctly.
Players liking you isn't the only hallmark for success as an owner. After all, the Dirty Birds are in the midst of an eight-year playoff drought, but as long as they know how to treat their players (and fans), they will be willing to come to Atlanta, which could help the new regime rewrite this losing narrative.