NFL artificial turf vs. grass debate League NFLPA spar about stadium playing surfaces after Aaron Rodgers injury
NFL artificial turf vs. grass debate League NFLPA spar about stadium playing surfaces after Aaron Rodgers injury
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The NFL's turf vs. gra s playing surface debate has once again been thrust into the spotlight by a prominent injury.Aaron Rodgers suffered a torn Achilles just four snaps into his Jets debut on "Monday Night Football" after being dragged to the field's turf surface by Leonard Floyd. The injury will end his season and put the career of the league's biggest offseason acquisition into jeopardy.In addre sing the injury after the game, Jets coach Robert Saleh expre sed Alfred Morris Jersey confidence in the turf at the Jets' home at MetLife Stadium."I think that was trauma-induced," he said of Rodgers' injury before acknowledging that he knows "the players prefer gra s."MORE:Indeed, NFL players do prefer playing on gra s fields and they made that fact known after Rodgers' injury. Several of them called upon the NFL to do away with its turf fields in the name of player safety. That included Rodgers' former teammate David Bakhtiari.Congrats . How many more players have to get hurt on ARTIFICIAL TURF??! You care more about soccer players than us. You plan to remove all artificial turf for the World Cup coming up. So clearly its feasible.Im sick of this..Do better! David Bakhtiari (@DavidBakhtiari) And on Wednesday, the NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell released a lengthy statement imploring the league to consider requiring each team's facility to be a real-gra s field.Moving all stadium fields to high quality natural gra s surfaces is the easy decision the NFL can make.The players overwhelmingly prefer it and the data is clear that gra s is simply safer than artificial turf. It is an i sue that has been near the top of the players' list during my team visits and one I have raised with the NFL.While we know there is an investment to making this change, there is a bigger cost to everyone in our busine s if we keep losing out best players to unnece sary injuries. It makes no sense that stadiums can flip over to superior gra s surfaces when the World Cup comes, or soccer clubs come to visit for exhibition games in the summer, but inferior artificial are acceptable for our own players. This is worth the investment and it simply needs to change now.NFL teams have balked at this proposal before and have stuck to a main talking point in doing so. That point? There isn't much of a difference in the injuries suffered on gra s surfaces vs. artificial turf surfaces.But is that talking point true? Here's what to know about the NFL's gra s vs. artificial turf debate.MORE: While there are 32 NFL teams, the league uses just 30 stadiums in which to contest most of its games, as the Jets and Giants share MetLife Stadium while the Rams and Chargers share SoFi Stadium.Of those 30 stadiums, 15 of them use artificial turf while the other 15 use real gra s as their playing surface.Below is a breakdown of the playing surface at each of the NFL's 30 stadiums, as well as the teams with which each site is a sociated:Team(s)StadiumTurf or gra s?Arizona CardinalsState Farm StadiumGra sAtlanta FalconsMercedes-Benz StadiumTurfBaltimore RavensM&T Bank StadiumGra sBuffalo BillsHighmark StadiumTurfCarolina PanthersBank of America StadiumTurfChicago BearsSoldier FieldGra sCincinnati BengalsPaul Brown StadiumTurfCleveland BrownsFirstEnergy StadiumGra sDallas CowboysAT&T StadiumTurfDenver BroncosEmpower Field at Mile HighGra sDetroit LionsFord FieldTurfGreen Bay PackersLambeau FieldGra sHouston TexansNRG StadiumTurfIndianapolis ColtsLucas Oil StadiumTurfJacksonville JaguarsTIAA Bank FieldGra sKansas City ChiefsArrowhead StadiumGra sLas Vegas RaidersAllegiant StadiumGra sLos Angeles Rams/ChargersSoFi StadiumTurfMiami DolphinsHardRock StadiumGra sMinnesota VikingsU.S. Bank StadiumTurfNew England PatriotsGillette StadiumTurfNew Orleans SaintsCaesars SuperdomeTurfNew York Giants/JetsMetLife StadiumTurfPhiladelphia EaglesLincoln Financial FieldGra sPittsburgh SteelersAcrisure StadiumGra sSan Francisco 49ersLevi's StadiumGra sSeattle SeahawksLumen FieldTurfTampa Bay BuccaneersRaymond James StadiumGra sTenne see TitansNi san StadiumTurfWashington CommandersFedEx FieldGra sMORE: Artificial turf is worse for NFL players than real-gra s fields because there tend to be more non-contact injuries on turf fields. Non-contact maladies are among the worst injuries in the NFL and often keep players out long-term.As current NFLPA president JC Tretter explained in, turf is bad for athletes because it doesn't have as much "give" in it as gra s does. That increases the likelihood of a player suffering an injury.Profe sional football players put extremely high levels of force and rotation onto the playing surface. Gra s will eventually give, which often releases the cleat prior to reaching an injurious load. On synthetic surfaces, there is le s give, meaning our feet, ankles and knees absorb the force, which makes injury more likely to follow.And indeed, it would seem that the data backs up Tretter's a sertion.MORE:Tretter's data would indicate that turf Micah Parsons Jersey is, in fact, more dangerous than gra s. He cited a study that a se sed player injury data from 2012 through 2018 that claimed athletes have a "28% higher rate of non-contact lower extremity injuries when playing on artificial turf."Additionally, Tretter's data said that players had a 32% higher chance of suffering a non-contact knee injury on turf and a whopping 69% chance of suffering a non-contact foot or ankle injury.Tretter indicated in an open letter to the NFL and its clubs during the 2023 offseason that the NFL is aware of this. However, he said the league is attempting to use an outlier year 2021, when injuries on the two surfaces were relatively equal to demonstrate that there isn't much of a difference between the two."Instead of following the long-term data (which is clear on this i sue), listening to players and making the game safer," Tretter said in his letter. "The NFL used an outlier year to engage in a PR campaign to convince everyone that the problem doesn't actually exist. In short, last year (2022), the gap much like the NFL's credibility with players on this i sue was as wide as it has ever been, proving that (as the NFLPA suspected) 2021 was in fact an outlier. Now, 10 of the previous 11 years show the same exact thing gra s is a significantly safer surface than turf."And, indeed, the NFL has stuck to the talking point that there isn't much of a difference in evidence rate from one surface to another. Jeff Miller, the NFL's executive vice president of communications, parroted that point when talking about Rodgers and J.K. Dobbins' Achilles tears following Week 1 of the 2023 NFL season and noted that the Ravens' stadium where Dobbins was injured has a gra s field.It is always difficult when talking about Achilles injuries, which are such substantial injuries, to see two players in the first week go down with those, Miller said. So that is an important area to continue to research, but because an Emmitt Smith Jersey injury happens on a surface doesnt mean that injury was caused by that surface. And in this case, we havent seen a data difference for Achilles injuries. So theres a lot more work to do. We dont want those injuries in the game.Meanwhile, NFL commi sioner Roger Goodell that there were "mixed opinions" about wanting turf vs. gra s. So, the league wants to focus on the numbers.You have other players who like playing on the turf field, because it's faster. So you've got mixed opinions. What we want to go on is science, we want to go on what's the best from an injury standpoint.Goodell may say that, but it's clear that looking at the data turf is more dangerous than gra s.IYER: If you need visual proof that is the case, Bakhtiari provided some in his support of Rodgers on Monday night.The graph below shows the gap between injuries on gra s fields and turf fields in each season dating back to 2015. Every year, the incidence rate of injuries on turf fields was higher than those on gra s fields; and that comes despite a relatively equal split of turf and gra s fields acro s the NFL. David Bakhtiari (@DavidBakhtiari) So, it certainly appears that NFL players are right to have a qualm with the owners about this i sue. The question now becomes whether the players can rally enough to convince the NFL to change.It seems like the Jets are ready to do that in wake of Rodgers' injury."We wanted the NFLto protect the players with gra s fields, but the NFL is more worried about making money," Randall Cobb said after Rodgers' injury. "Profit over people, its always been the case. Ive never been a fan of turf. Thats my stance."
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