During a Thursday media conference call that focused on playing surfaces, the NFL tucked a little news into the same-old “fake grass is as good as real grass” messaging.
As written up by Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com, who (unlike me) was passing attention at the time, the league said that the NFL and the NFL Players Association “have agreed to a new model for selecting playing surfaces in stadiums, one that will require teams to choose from an approved set of manufacturers and styles for both natural and synthetic fields.”
The policy applies to any teams that will be installing new surfaces for 2026. By 2028, all NFL stadiums will be required to have fields from the approved list.
It’s still not what the NFLPA and many players have made clear they prefer — high-quality grass in every venue. During the part of the conference call when I was actively listening, the league repeated its position that injury rates in recent years for non-contact injuries on real grass and fake grass are substantially the same.
That cherry-picked number ignores the anecdotal reality that players’ bodies take less of an overall pounding when playing on grass (which absorbs more of the forces their bodies create) than artificial turf (which does not).
Anyone who has run on an artificial surface knows this is true. The next morning, they all feel it, to some extent.
The sad reality is that, beyond the absence of high-quality grass in all stadiums being a matter of unwillingness to spend the money necessary to do it, the issue has morphed into a matter for collective bargaining. Even if one or more owners suddenly become inclined to write the check to convert from artificial turf to a high-quality grass field, they’ll quite possibly refrain from doing it until the NFLPA makes a concession aimed at securing this alteration to the existing status quo.
Still, the development is better than nothing. Even if it’s not as good as it could be — the high-quality grass that virtually every player wants.
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