George Kittle has always been big on speaking things into existence. In episode 3 of the Netflix docuseries Receiver, the San Francisco 49ers tight end can be seen punching his shoulder and telling himself, “You’re great, you’re healthy, you’re strong.” That was a way to tell his body to fight through pain, but there is only so much a player can manifest before the field he’s playing on turns against him. And to prevent that, Kittle is trying to speak the next big change into existence.

“We’ve made it clear that we prefer grass fields,” Kittle said, in a post shared on Instagram by the NFLPA, in collaboration with Kittle’s IG handle. “We know it’s better on our bodies. And clearly, we know it’s possible based on everything that went into putting down grass fields for the World Cup in each stadium.

“At this point, it comes down to the NFL making it a priority and choosing to invest in us as players, because our bodies are our business, which they get to capitalize on!”

George Kittle – who is recovering from an Achilles tear he suffered last season – makes the case that the league makes money off the players’ bodies, so they should pay for a safer playing surface. This debate gained momentum since NFL stadiums switched to natural grass for the 2026 FIFA World Cup games. Kittle recently went on Pardon My Take and made the same point again. NFL stadiums can have natural grass if the owners are willing to spend the money.

“Why not spend a couple extra million dollars, which we know they all have, to just grass all the fields?” he said on the show. “It doesn’t seem that difficult.”

The injury data behind it all is why this argument keeps picking up steam. A 2024 study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine discovered that lower-extremity injury rates were higher on artificial turf than on natural grass. A National Institute of Health (NIH) study from that same year concluded that 1.42 injuries happened per game on artificial turf, while that number dropped to 1.22 on natural grass. But the league has pushed back on that idea since then.

Back in January 2026, the league shared its own injury data and said the injury rates were basically the same on both surfaces: 0.43 on artificial surfaces and 0.42 on grass. That’s part of the narrative George Kittle is trying to beat.

Last season, the Niners were so riddled with injuries that a controversial theory started gaining ground, claiming that the EMF radiation from an electrical substation near the Niners’ facility in Santa Clara was the reason so many in that roster were injured. At the time, even Kittle had urged the league and his team to “look into it to make sure it’s not something.” They listened and went on to debunk that theory. But as the league moved on from that, questions around the turf remained.

MetLife Stadium is where this fight becomes the loudest. Aaron Rodgers’ Achilles tear in 2023, Malik Nabers’ ACL injury last season – at least 18 players have gone down when faced with MetLife’s turf. New York Giants’ veteran linebacker Brian Burns has recently expressed a wish for the natural grass in MetLife to stay for the NFL season, saying, “Grass just feels better. Everybody knows that.”

But others have taken a different approach than George Kittle and Burns. New Giants head coach John Harbaugh was also asked about the grass vs. turf debate recently, but he chose to play it safe in case it draws backlash from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“You’re going to try to draw me into the turf vs. grass, then Roger’s going to call me up, and he’s going to get mad at me because I’m probably not going to say what he wants me to say,” Harbaugh said. “That’s all I’m going to say. It’s a good surface out there, it’s a good artificial surface.”

As for George Kittle, he’s already said he most players who want the grass. He’s not wrong to drag the cost argument into the open, either. The NFL keeps calling the numbers close, and the players keep calling it wear and tear. That’s the part Kittle wants the league to pay for.