Mike Florio ,
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On Sunday in Pittsburgh, the field at Acrisure Stadium during Browns-Steelers looked bad. Very bad.
“ Borderline unplayable ” were the words quarterback Aaron Rodgers used to describe the playing surface.
Per NFL Players Association sources, players from both teams almost immediately contacted the union to express “outrage” about the “embarrassing” condition of the grass. The NFLPA has conveyed its concern to the NFL.
At a time when the grass vs. turf debate has been renewed, players prefer grass. But it must be high-quality grass. The NFLPA continues to press the NFL to improve and to coordinate the grass maintenance practices across the entire league.
The problem likely traces in part to the fact that the Steelers and Pitt share the facility. Former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger recently suggested that Pitt should get the boot . Really, no NFL team should be sharing its playing surface with other football teams.
The root of the problem continues to be money. Plenty of owners don’t want to invest the money required to have grass over turf. Those that have grass can’t just let nature take its course.
Then there’s the fact that the companies that pay for naming rights to NFL stadiums would prefer to not have their brands mentioned in connection with something negative, whether it’s a horrible playing field or raw sewage raining down on customers . (That incident from 2021 may have caused some fans to conclude “FedEx” is short for “Fed Excrement.”)
Far more importantly, workplace safety is a given throughout America. The field is the workplace for football players. The NFL and its team owners should spare no expense to give players the best possible workplaces — especially at a time when owners have bent over backward to comply with the exacting demands of FIFA in connection with next year’s World Cup.
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