The general rule is — at least when it comes to complex subjects — the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. So I’ll say in advance that I don’t have a “solution” to the turf/grass debate that became magnified last Sunday after a slew of injuries took place in the Seahawks-Chargers game on SoFi Stadium’s artificial surface.
But after conducting research, interviewing players and talking to grass experts, I do think the NFL and its owners need to put more thought into the field their multimillion dollar investments play on. Numbers can fib sometimes — but the data regarding the risk players face on turf as compared to grass is persuasive.
I’ll admit I was skeptical when Seahawks safety Ryan Neal brought up the issue after their win over L.A. last Sunday, as he blamed the turf for noncontact injuries to Chargers cornerback JC Jackson, Chargers receiver Mike Williams and Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf. I remembered folks condemning Thursday Night football games for various injuries in a similar fashion a few years back, only for the data to show that players weren’t more likely to suffer serious harm in a Thursday game than they were on Sunday or Monday.
But the data on turf-related injuries is much different. A study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine showed that, from 2012-18, players had a 28% higher rate of noncontact injuries on artificial turf vs. natural grass. The rate of noncontact knee injuries shot up to 32% higher on turf, while the rate of foot ankle/injuries surged to 69% — primarily “due to the synthetic turf’s lack of ability to release an athlete’s shoe.”
Maybe this is why Seahawks safety Quandre Diggs said he “hates” playing on turf and wonders: “Why can’t we have natural grass everywhere?”
But can they? This is a question Aldarra Golf Club superintendent Sean Reehoorn — an agronomy major who manages grass for a living — thinks can be answered with “yes.” He said the technology is there and has been for quite a while. An example he cited was the hexagonal modules used in the Silverdome in the Detroit area during the 1994 World Cup, where grass was grown outside, kept and fertilized in more than 1,850 steel hexagon containers and then forklifted into the stadium before the tournament.
We’re seeing similar technology with the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders’ stadiums, where grass is grown and maintained outside the facilities during the week, and moved inside on game day via a system of electric motors.
This makes for a safer surface for football players, all the while keeping the more-easily maintainable turf in place for concerts or trade shows or whatever else the stadium may be used for. Is this costly? Absolutely. But to paraphrase Reehoorn — who notes that European soccer players refuse to play on turf because of injury concerns — if you’re paying a player $20 million a year, and he is significantly more likely to hurt himself on turf, isn’t that a major expense, too?
This is where a cost-benefit analysis comes into play, and where an NFL representative would be helpful. An email I sent to the league asking for its side in the turf/grass debate went unanswered.
It’s easy to say that no expense should be spared when it comes to player safety, but in reality there is some limit, right? An owner spending an extra $10 billion per year to make a surface 30% safer wouldn’t be feasible — but an extra $100 million? $200 million. What’s reasonable? And what’s practical?
These are some of the questions I asked University of Tennessee professor and turf grass expert John Sorochan. Sorochan serves as a consultant to the NFL Players Association and is a staunch supporter of grass fields. But he also isn’t naive to the circumstances that would make implementing grass more challenging to certain stadiums.
He mentioned how it’s much easier to maintain grass outside in places such as Arizona and Las Vegas than it would be in Detroit or Minnesota, which might require pricey greenhouses to do so. He discussed how stadiums that have an NFL and MLS team face the task of having to constantly wash away and repaint the lines, which is far less taxing on a turf field.
And as someone who is constantly thinking “how could we get grass into every stadium?” Sorochan said that even issues such as traffic could present hurdles in certain cities, including Seattle. But he also said that every team owner should strive for grass fields — and was particularly peeved that the Tennessee Titans’ soon-to-be-constructed facility will feature artificial turf when Nashville is in an ideal climate for grass.
“The last thing that usually comes to mind when they build a stadium is the field. How many luxury boxes are we going to have? Where are the concessions?” Sorochan said. “Whoever owns the stadium, they consider the seats, the beer stands, the concessions and the ticket gate is what generates revenue. Not the field. The field is an expense.”
Again, I’m not going to pretend to know every factor that goes into owners choosing turf or grass or hybrids such as what we are seeing in Las Vegas and Arizona. This is an 1,100-word column that could probably be a 11,000-word explanatory examining all the angles of this issue.
Seldom are issues as black-and-white as what you see on social media or hear from athletes — and “owners are greedy” is often an oversimplification.
But I can read data. And I’ve seen what technology can do. And I know stadiums such as the famously frigid Lambeau Field can maintain its grass all through the winter.
So this is why I had a hard time processing why Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who spent more than $5 billion on SoFi Stadium, forewent a grass option despite what the Raiders and Cardinals are doing, and despite what the injury data indicates. Probably comes down to what Sorochan suggested: It just wasn’t something he thought about.
I’m not going to sit here and call for an all-out ban on turf going forward. It’s a nuanced issue. But given what the research has suggested, and given what players have been advocating, the field shouldn’t be an afterthought for the owners. It hurts nobody for them at least consider the expense, but assuming all the data is legit, will hurt a whole lot of players if they don’t.