SAN FRANCISCO — Even amid growing discord between the NFL and NFL Players Association on matters such as a potential 18-game regular season, there is rising consensus about developing fields around the league that can meet a “Goldilocks” standard for performance and player safety.
The union has had a long history of criticizing the league about field standards, particularly amid the forthcoming FIFA World Cup and the use of natural grass in many NFL stadiums that ordinarily use synthetic fields.
The early December introduction of a new set of field standards, applied to both grass and synthetic fields, creates elevated requirements that each facility must meet by 2028—including ones used for an unprecedented set of international games. The push toward greater quality and uniformity, however, is already accelerating.
“We’ve made meaningful progress on field safety—this year,” said NFLPA interim executive director David White. “The league has implemented new field standards that reflect the joint work that the P.A. is doing with the league. The standards are going to help move the game to a greater consistency across stadiums and across surface compositions. … The work isn’t done, but it’s progress.”
NFL EVP Jeff Miller said the new field program reflects not only constant and productive dialogue between the league and union on this issue, but a push to have fields that are neither too rigid nor too springy, and neither too tacky nor too slippery.
“We definitely understand our fields better because of the tools we’ve developed with the Players Association,” Miller told Front Office Sports. “We can now measure some of those forces that allow us to create a standard to get into that Goldilocks zone between too hard and too soft. … If we can narrow what that band is when a player steps on that field, you’re going to have a similarity of feel.”
Head vs. Heart
Where there is still some disagreement, however, is the use of synthetic fields in half of the league’s 30 stadiums. In many cases, the decision to do so was made on cost, maintenance, and dome-related factors. Recent NFL injury data has generally shown no significant statistical difference in the player injury rates between grass and synthetic fields.
Players, however, continue to point to issues around synthetic fields, including injuries that involved no significant contact.
“Let’s be clear. More than 90% of our players prefer grass,” White said. “The data that we do have access to show that the energy return from a synthetic surface is significantly higher than it is on natural grass, which is what players say from their own experiences. It’s just harder on the body.”
Amplifying the debate is the use of grass fields for the World Cup at synthetic field venues, including MetLife Stadium, site of the World Cup final. The NFL, however, is working directly with FIFA and sharing data around field performance.
“Their athletes and our athletes are different,” Miller said. “We have multi-use stadiums and big, powerful athletes. They use their stadiums infrequently and use them with different sorts of athletes. But as we turn over our stadiums to them and they lay out their fields, we’re going to learn a lot. There will probably be insights that we gain and use.”
Prepping the Super Bowl Site
Many of these same standards will be utilized at Levi’s Stadium, the site of Super Bowl LX on Sunday. The natural-grass field was replaced in early January, shortly before the 49ers’ season ended in the divisional round of the playoffs.
Nick Pappas, the NFL’s field director, is leading that installation process, and there is confidence there will not be a repeat of Super Bowl LVII three years ago, when the Chiefs and Eagles battled on a State Farm Stadium field likened by many players to a Slip ’N Slide.
“Nick has a saying that grass grows by the inch but dies by the foot, your foot as you step on it,” Miller said. “So we’re very comfortable with the new surface that we’ve put in, that it’s had time to take [root], and that it’s going to play really well. I know Nick is living on that surface, talking to it every day, and started painting it this morning. So we’re going to be in really good shape.”
