Over the last decade, career-ending injuries in the NFL have been steadily on the rise, and many of these can be linked to artificial turf fields.
Improvement in artificial grass for sports has been phenomenal. In the early 2000s, when playing on artificial grass, players were essentially just playing on a thin carpet. Artificial grass is now a multi-million dollar industry, and improvements are made yearly to make turf even more like genuine grass.
These improvements led to many teams choosing turf as their preferred playing surface. Despite this progress, turf is still not as safe as grass. Turf can be too slippery or catch players’ cleats, which leads to injuries. According to the National Library of Medicine, injuries are 16% more likely to occur when playing on turf.
Many other sports, including most soccer leagues, refuse to use artificial turf. This is significant because in 2026, many NFL stadiums will be used for the FIFA World Cup. When the NFL agreed to lend its stadiums to FIFA, some areas announced they would switch to grass fields for the soccer matches. NFL players were extremely frustrated by this decision. By switching from turf to grass for the World Cup, the NFL made it seem like they care more for the soccer players than they do for their own football players.
Many players are having their careers either ruined or tarnished by serious injuries on artificial turf fields. No injury exemplifies this more than when star quarterback Aaron Rodgers went down with a season-ending Achilles tear minutes into his debut for the New York Jets. His injury took place from a tackle involving little contact on a turf field. Many other top players this year have had devastating injuries on artificial turf fields, too.
The clear answer, for the sake of the players, is to just switch to real grass. If the NFL wants to keep its stars on the field for as long as possible, switching to real grass is the change they are going to have to make.
