A month after the players’ union asked the NFL eliminate artificial playing surfaces, an NFL official addressed the issue during the owners’ meetings in New York on Tuesday — and added that the league is looking to team with another major sports entity to figure out a path forward.
Admitting the difficulties in trying to find one solution for all 30 NFL stadiums, NFL executive vice president of health and safety Jeff Miller told reporters the league hopes to work with FIFA to go over research and best practices when it comes to field compositions and the effects each type can have on players.
“We want to take a look at the variety of surfaces that they have and use some of the metrics that we measure against, things like hardness, traction, (overall) performance,” Miller said, according to Front Office Sports. “For us, it’s less about grass vs. synthetic than looking at the characteristics of each and reducing injury rates of both.”
In a statement in September, NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell said, “Moving all stadium fields to high quality natural grass surfaces is the easiest decision the NFL can make,” before invoking international soccer himself.
“It makes no sense that stadiums can flip over to superior grass surfaces when the World Cup comes, or soccer clubs come to visit for exhibition games in the summer, but inferior artificial surfaces are acceptable for our own players,” Miller said in the statement. “This is worth the investment and it simply needs to change now.”
According to multiple reports Tuesday, the fact the United States is hosting the World Cup in 2026 along with Canada and Mexico — and that FIFA is planning to utilize NFL stadiums during the tournament — played a role in seeking FIFA’s help.
FIFA will use a hybrid grass for the World Cup, and Miller said the league wants to narrow the different types of turf currently used in NFL stadiums.
“I think the goal needs to be to limit the number of different surfaces that our clubs play on, so a player has an appreciation when he steps onto the field in one city that’s going to feel very similar to the surface that he steps on in a different city so it doesn’t feel hard or soft or slick or sticky,” Miller said, according to ESPN. “He knows what that’s going to feel like, therefore the appreciation for it is going to satisfy him to some degree.”
–Field Level Media
