Before the Arizona Cardinals face the Los Angeles Rams on Oct.15, there is even more drama surrounding the valley football team after star James Conner was placed on injured reserve.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!In an article by Kayln Kahler of The Athletic, news has come out by current and former employees of the Cardinals stating that the work environment inside the franchise can be labeled as them “working in fear” under owner Michael Bidwill.
Criticism from Employees
In 2019, the employees were told to fill out a survey and a few didn’t hold back when sharing their thoughts of the higher ups.
Kahler said that a few “tore Bidwill into shreds.”
Interestingly, however, there was no talk about the surveys again as time passed and the thoughts on the upper management seemed like they were unseen.
This forced some staffers to believe that their feelings and opinions didn’t matter.
Furthermore, there was a female staffer that was yelled at, not because of doing something wrong, but because Bidwill thought she was walking too slowly.
When she just got hired, a supervisor told her that she would have became an “Official Cardinal” if Bidwill yelled at her.
Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, Bidwill criticized her for her movement speed.
To top it all off, the hallway on the second level of the Cardinals headquarters with Bidwill’s office in it was known as a “tip-toe zone.”
Staffers didn’t know if Bidwill would be in a good mood or not each day, so they tried to avoid that area.
When asked about job security, an anonymous former staffer said that there was always the feeling that they could be fired for someone else at any time.
“We likened it to the Broadway lights,” the anonymous person said. “If one bulb goes out, they’ll just throw it away and pop in a new one.”
There has been no comment from the Cardinals organization or Bidwill on the developments, at the time of reporting.
You can read the whole article on The Athletic by clicking on this link.
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Alec Cipollini is a journalist covering the Arizona Coyotes, Cardinals and Phoenix Rising for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account @AlecCipollini
