An early season fight over grass vs. turf likely was surely not in the script.
But here we are. Sparked by the Aaron Rodgers injury, the debate has intensified. NFL Players Association executive director Lloyd Howell upped the ante on Wednesday, calling for all NFL fields to consist of grass.
Later in the morning morning, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the issue in an appearance on ESPN’s First Take.
“You have other players who like playing on the turf field, because it’s faster,” Goodell said regarding the player preference for grass, via Albert Breer of SI.com. “So you’ve got mixed opinions. What we want to go on is science, we want to go on what’s the best from an injury standpoint.”
That last part implies the NFL eventually will pick a safer surface and make it universal, based on the data. That likely won’t happen, in part because the data will always be manipulated to support whatever the person citing it wants to support. The league can spin the numbers one way, and the union can spin the numbers another.
What can’t be spun is the anecdotal evidence. Players prefer grass.
But now Goodell says some prefer turf. Who are they? Where are they? This isn’t like the Thursday night debate, where some players call it a “poopfest” and others welcome the easier week of practice followed by the mini-bye on the other side of a short-week game. That’s much closer to 50-50.
If there are players who actually prefer turf, there aren’t many. And they aren’t talking about it publicly.
So let’s hear from them. And if they won’t speak up, Goodell or someone else from the league should name names.
