Eagles running back Saquon Barkley’s three touchdowns and Packers quarterback Jordan Love’s late injury were the headlines of Friday night’s Eagles win, but another storyline from the NFL’s first game in Brazil was the state of the playing surface.
Players from both teams had trouble keeping their feet on the grass at Corinthians Arena in Sao Paolo. Barkley slipped and lost five yards on his first carry as an Eagle and Packers safety Xavier McKinney, Barkley’s former Giants teammate, said “there were some cases where I was slipping” as well. Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert compared the field to the slippery surface in Arizona for Super Bowl LVII and quarterback Jalen Hurts also chimed in on the difficulties.
“I mean, y’all saw out there that it was kind of rough to get traction,” Hurts said, via Tim McManus of ESPN.com. “Definitely challenging on that field. It’s not the type of field we’re used to playing on. We’ve had that type of field before. They had to play on it, as well. I’m just happy that we found a way to figure it out as a team, overcome it.”
The NFL is planning on more international games in the future and the quality of the fields they use will likely draw greater scrutiny after watching how things played out on Friday.