It happened again. It’s happened too often.
Emmanuel Moseley’s torn ACL in the waning minutes of the 49ers’ 37-15 slow crush of the Carolina Panthers was another moment of anguish suffered on an unnatural playing surface.
Kyle Shanahan also deemed two other injuries — to Samson Ebukam’s Achilles and to Aaron Banks’ knee — as turf-related tendinitis. Ebukam missed practice Wednesday and was limited Thursday. Banks has been limited both days.
This is a very sore subject for the 49ers. Before Moseley, their 2020 campaign was derailed by turf-related injures. Both Nick Bosa and Solomon Thomas tore their ACLs a few plays apart on a much-maligned MetLife surface. Jason Verrett tore his ACL in the season opener in 2021 on Detroit’s turf.
They are not alone. Minnesota’s rookie safety Lewis Cine suffered a horrific ankle injury on the turf at London’s Tottenham Hotspur stadium, when his ankle appeared to get stuck in the surface.
There were substantial concerns raised about deep spots in the seams where the yard markers meet in London. It’s a surface which separates by design, but which players seem to have serious worries about playing on.
That’s why NFL Players Association president J.C. Tretter called for all stadiums to have natural grass playing surfaces in an open letter in 2020. Players created a Change.Org petition calling for the same following Odell Beckham Jr.’s torn ACL in the Super Bowl.
George Kittle took aim at the issue after the game, asking why the NFL doesn’t mandate a consistent playing surface.
It’s a fair question.
Now, these injuries are not exclusive to turf. When Jimmy Garoppolo and Jerick McKinnon tore their ACL’s in 2018, it was on grass. Jordan Matthews tore his ACL on grass this training camp. There are countless other players who have been injured on grass.
But it has been proven by countless studies that soft-tissue injuries are more common on turf. A study published this month suggests concussions may be more common on turf.
A 2018 article in the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine argued that the rates of lower extremity injuries are higher for NFL players on artificial turf.
A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine makes clear that it’s not some inscrutable, muddy correlation. It states, “playing on artificial turf increases the risk of lower-body injury” and, “field surface has a causal effect on injury rates due to synthetic turf’s lack of ability to release an athlete’s shoe.”
A 2022 study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found football players are more likely to sustain knee injuries on artificial turf. That was true both for older and more modern turf surfaces.
Per the NFL’s own research, as shared in Tretter’s 2020 letter:
“Players have a 28% higher rate of non-contact lower extremity injuries when playing on artificial turf. Of those non-contact injuries, players have a 32% higher rate of non-contact knee injuries on turf and a staggering 69% higher rate of non-contact foot/ankle injuries on turf compared to grass.”
This is a league that has had to make such an exhaustive public relations effort after hiding concussion data and settling for roughly $1 billion to provide to players who suffered traumatic brain injuries.
It’s a league which took until this past year to alter a “race-norming” standard in dementia testing of former players which made it much more difficult for Black players to secure money from that settlement.
You would think the plethora of other studies showing turf is more dangerous than grass would send alarm bells, especially given the well-established perception that the league doesn’t care about protecting its players.
Their response has been typically dissatisfying.
There’s a pretty stellar couple paragraphs in this piece by Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic from Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs & policy; health & safety initiatives. It was published this month. From Miller:
“Big picture, the lower extremity injury rates between natural grass and synthetic surfaces over the past few years has decreased to the point where it’s almost nonexistent right now. So, as a general matter, looking simply at a synthetic surface or a natural grass surface, it doesn’t really yield us a whole lot.”
The very next line:
“Asked for the data behind the claim, the league declined to provide it.”
If your data supports your claim, you provide the data.
You would be hard-pressed to find any research that suggests turf is safer than natural grass. It’s not. The league’s own half-baked claim supported by exactly no evidence suggests that the difference between the surfaces is “almost nonexistent right now,” not that turf is somehow safer.
It’s not exactly a complicated hypothesis. Just about everyone reading this has stepped on turf and on grass.
Walking barefoot on natural grass is actually therapeutic. You can purchase grounding mats to simulate the effect of standing on grass.
You wouldn’t think of doing that on turf. It’s actually explicitly inadvisable.
And sure, turf has improved. Players aren’t running around on what is essentially concrete anymore, though concrete or a mix of hard rock is still used as the foundation under many turf surfaces.
But artificial turf is artificial turf. It’s generally composed of synthetic polymers and rubber pellets. And while it’s softer now than those old, hard surfaces, it’s far grabbier and less forgiving than grass surfaces.
Of the 30 NFL stadiums, 14 have turf. 50 percent of teams play their home games on turf, with two of those stadiums – SoFi and MetLife, being shared turf stadiums.
So, what’s the holdup? Why haven’t all stadiums implemented natural grass?
It’s up to the owners. And grass costs more than turf. That’s the gist of it. There are also weather and climate concerns, and places like Chicago’s Solider Field and Washington’s FedEx Field have long had notoriously poor grass fields. But players and data still overwhelmingly favor natural surfaces.
Grass also doesn’t have to be exclusive to outdoor stadiums. The Raiders’ new Allegiant Stadium uses natural grass, as does the Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium.
It’s not even like there are retorts to that argument couched in sustainability, which you think would be a reasonable enough counter to putting a grass surface in those drought-riddled areas, or somewhere like Los Angeles. But turf isn’t sustainable.
Aside from water concerns, it creates more headaches than it prevents.
Per a 2017 report from the Synthetic Turf Council, they projected, “that by the end of the decade, at least 750 fields will be replaced annually. The average field contains approximately 40,000 pounds of plastic carpet and 400,000 pounds of infill. This means that as much as 330 million pounds of waste could require disposal every year.”
As referenced in the Change.Org petition from players:
“On average, one turf field requires over 440,000 pounds of petroleum derivatives. The production of which emits carbon, creates fossil fuels, and contributes to global warming. “
There are massive concerns about turf disposal… in that the “disposal” part of the equation is often ignored, leading to massive pileups of unrecycled, undisposed old turf fields.
California, in particular, has a major issue with turf disposal, as detailed in this piece from The Atlantic. The process of recycling a turf field properly is arduous given the layering of turf; it’s like a layer cake topped with artificial, polymer-composed grass, often with a crumb rubber and sand infill, followed by layers of plastic and rubber, with drainage mats and shock pads.
But the environmental concerns, though legitimate and supportive of grass, are secondary.
Players know their bodies. They know what feels unnatural. We can all see and have seen when players get a cleat stuck in the turf in a way that doesn’t happen on grass. Studies continue to support that their concerns are legitimate.
The 49ers are right to feel aggrieved. They, and other players will continue to feel that way until the NFL mandates teams to make the switch to a natural surface.
In a league with an ignominious reputation of not prioritizing players’ well-being, this has to become a priority this offseason.