NFL Declares Brazil Field Ready Even As Questions Persist

The NFL declared the field at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro compliant with the league’s joint standards with the NFL Players Association, giving it what amounted to final clearance Saturday ahead of Sunday’s game between the Ravens and Cowboys.

Even so, questions about the playing surface persisted as the NFL made its final preparations for its third-ever game in Brazil—and first in Rio de Janeiro.

“A lot of our mandatory practices, our standards, are [centered] around health and safety, as they should be, right?” Nick Pappas, the NFL’s field director, told reporters Saturday in Brazil. “We want to always put in some sort of standards that we can measure and enforce from a safety and compliance perspective. This field meets that.

“However, we also want to make sure that our athletes can go out and perform as well as they want to perform, right? That’s the goal for our athletes, for the game, for the fans who watch it in stadium and on TV. So for us, athlete performance is important.”

NFLPA executive director JC Tretter said Friday in a statement that the issues with the field are more about performance than player safety.

“I believe we’ll have that opportunity on Sunday where they’ll be able to go out and perform,” Pappas told reporters Saturday. “Again, these are highly tuned athletes. They adapt quickly. They’ve got opportunities to adjust their footwear. They’ve got opportunities to see the field before the game and ahead of time and make conscious decisions on how to go out and perform.”

An independent inspector examined the field with Pappas and an NFLPA representative, Pappas said.

“They were here [Friday and] performed that test,” Pappas said. “Again, things check out. We’ve made additional improvements to the field that we think were just helpful, all around helpful.”

A video posted by Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan with a close-up of the field drew sharply negative reactions. NFL reporter Jordan Schultz wrote on X/Twitter that the field “looks legitimately awful.”

Concerns about the condition of the playing surface were previously raised by soccer players for Flamengo, which plays its home games in the stadium.

The NFL told Front Office Sports last Sunday that it was looking forward to the game in Rio and had a plan in place to ensure a high-quality playing surface. On Monday, Pappas told FOS from Brazil he had “full confidence” that he and his staff would have the field ready for the game. He attributed the concerns about the field largely to recent heavy rainfall.

The field was unused for soccer matches this week. The NFL used machinery to employ a field-stitching technique in which synthetic fibers were driven into the ground to reinforce the grass playing surface.

“Rest was number one, right?” Pappas told reporters Saturday. “Giving the opportunity to get some rest. Made a phone call to shut the rain off. So we’ve got some sunshine now. I wish I could take credit for that. You know, stitching it was a big piece of it. … We’re going to be ready tomorrow.”