Beasts and Shephard Druid aura

[Aaedimus]

A CR 1/4 Constrictor Snake grapples on a hit without an athletics check, however the escape DC is 14. Many beasts share this same mechanic.

It doesn't seem to mesh well with the Shephard Druid's Bear aura though.

Your allies in the aura get advantage on strength checks, however this doesn't effect the DC, and an athletics check averages a lower score than the escape DC as well generally, unless the beasts are said to be proficient in athletics.

For summons this isn't a huge deal, but if the player is wildshshaped they generally don't have the athletics proficiency, and so their grapples seem to suffer.

Am I missing something here?

[LuccMa]

I don't think so. If your DM sees that as a problem, too, you could ask him to up the DC to Athletics with Advantage (+5) Average. But just by RAW i dont think youre missing something.

A wildshaped druid does retain his proficencies, though. He just gains the proficencies of the wildshape form. So if you want to up your strength in wildshape grapples (that dont just attack to grapple) you could pick up athletics as a normal proficency.

[JackPhoenix]

The snakes (and other animals) can still grapple (or shove, for wolves and the like) normally, using the standard PHB rules.

The wildshaped druid can either grapple, making Str (Athletics) checks as normal, or use constrict attack, grapple and apply restrained condition automatically on hit, but at the cost of using fixed DC to escape instead of (possibly better) opposed ability checks.

Note that there's a sidebar in the MM that could potentially be used to change the DC: "A creature grappled by the monster can use its action to try to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against the escape DC in the monster's stat block. If no escape DC is given, assume the DC is 10 +the monster's Strength (Athletics) modifier." (emphasis mine)

[Aaedimus]

The snakes (and other animals) can still grapple (or shove, for wolves and the like) normally, using the standard PHB rules.

The wildshaped druid can either grapple, making Str (Athletics) checks as normal, or use constrict attack, grapple and apply restrained condition automatically on hit, but at the cost of using fixed DC to escape instead of (possibly better) opposed ability checks.

Note that there's a sidebar in the MM that could potentially be used to change the DC: "A creature grappled by the monster can use its action to try to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against the escape DC in the monster's stat block. If no escape DC is given, assume the DC is 10 +the monster's Strength (Athletics) modifier." (emphasis mine)

And here lies the issue:
The escape DC is strength plus proficiency for most creatures with an escape DC, even if/though the creature and player are not proficient in Athletics.

This is better than a contested check with advantage without proficiency added to the grapple, meaning the beasts gain no advantage from the advantage in the contested athletics check provided by the shephard druid's bear aura UNLESS the player has proficiency or expertise in Athletics (how many druids do? Usually strength is a dump stat)