Dear MetLife Stadium,
Get. Your. Sh*t. Together. And let your NFL players play on grass. That goes for about half the league, too. SoFi Stadium, step the f*ck up, too.
How many more NFL players have to be lost to your trash-a** turf before you get the message, MetLife? Was watching Aaron Rodgers’ Achilles explode not a high-profile enough instance to, you know, maybe put some things into motion toward taking action? No?
OK. Well how about one of the better young pass-rushers in the NFL in the Dolphins’ Jaelan Phillips, whose Achilles ruptured on the same field Rodgers’ did in Week 1 during garbage time of Miami’s 34-13 drubbing of the Jets on Black Friday.
Fins running back Raheem Mostert fared rather well in the win, rushing for 94 yards on 20 carries and two touchdowns. Even he’s at the postgame podium making it known how displeased he is with the unreasonable working conditions.
How about Jevon Holland, who had the 99-yard pick-six on Tim Boyle’s Hail Mary? Is he fond of the turf?
Now let’s be fair to the MetLife Stadium geniuses. They thought that putting in new turf for this season would be the answer to all their previous problems and the years of criticism Holland alludes to here.
…Looking back on this psued0-puff piece by ESPN from on MetLife Stadium from late August about how the new playing surface was drawing, uh, “positive reviews” from the Jets and Giants — the headline’s words, not mine — you can see that even Aaron Rodgers had his reservations.
“I’m a fan of grass, for sure. Got to admit that. I like wearing seven studs and playing on grass, but I feel like the field — it’s supposedly the newest and the greatest.\
There’s obviously been a lot of conversation around grass field compared to turf field, but I feel like the other night, it’s been one of the best surfaces I’ve seen that’s artificial…
It’s our surface, so we’re going to enjoy it. I’ve always felt a little faster on turf, so I look forward to that.”
Translation: “This doesn’t suck quite as much as the other turf fields, but don’t get it twisted, it still f*cking blows.”
Mere weeks later, Rodgers’ Achilles explodes.
My most-read blog at my former employer dealt with this grass vs. turf field debate at NFL stadiums. It’s not really a debate, though. Plenty of damning information is out there, and ICYMI, here you go:
Anyone think George Kittle is a pretty tough guy? Yeah I think he is. Do you think he’s exaggerating about all this? OK say you’re a total moron and you do think he’s being hyperbolic. Let’s look at some of the data points from the petition he linked to last year, shall we?
“The numbers don’t lie:
28% more non-contact lower body injuries.*
32% more non-contact knee injuries.*
And 69% more non-contact foot and ankle injuries occurred on turf.*
Turf can get up to 60 degrees hotter than natural grass, increasing the rate at which toxic gases are released and ingested.**
90% of NFL players believe artificial turf will shorten their careers.***”
NFL revenue is exploding. Whatever man/womanpower it would take to make tight turnarounds for arena concerts or other massive events would create a bazillion jobs and be well worth the trouble and extra cost. I’m not bloviating about some pie-in-the-sky utopia with flying cars.
These greedy hacks who preside over such decisions make hand-over-fist Monopoly money and feel the need to preserve precious extra millions of dollars at the expense of the gladiatorial entertainers who put their bodies on the line on these concrete-hard football fields.
Except the thing is, it’s not really cheaper to maintain a stadium venue, or so it seems, if they just installed f*cking grass.
Football is violent enough. There’s plenty of innate risk that players sign up for. Why sabotage them and deliberately put them at greater risk of injury? It’s bad for everyone’s bottom line!
So yeah. Grass, not turf. Here we are again. Another key player lost for the remainder of a season. Make it stop.
