At long last, the troubled Acrisure Stadium is finally getting its field replaced ahead of this season. It was a much-needed upgrade, as most players have tough memories of playing here. However, former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison didn’t believe the new surface would solve the real issue.

“The biggest issue that we have is that it’s too many games played on that surface,” he said on the Deebo and Joe podcast. “I don’t care how many times you change the surface. It’s not gonna work. It’s gonna get terrible in that stadium because you have Pitt playing on that surface, you have us playing on that surface, and then you have the high school playoff games playing on that surface in November.

“When you look at it, you’ve got 25 games or more that are playing on that surface, and that’s before we even get to the playoffs… Until the Steelers have their own stadium that only they play in, this will be a problem. It will continue to be a problem.”

Last year, the Pittsburgh Panthers and Steelers played 15 games combined. In November, four WPIAL championship games were held on one Saturday. Workers had to replace the grass two or three times every season. It has been clear for some time that the Acrisure field has faced some serious wear and tear.

Sure, the grass has now been replaced by Tahoma 31 Bermuda, which is also used at the Lincoln Financial Field. However, the number of games will stay the same. In fact, with college football and the NFL both eyeing a schedule expansion, the new field might be under a lot of pressure very soon after its installation.

In 2025, there were three instances of the Steelers and Panthers playing back-to-back in the Acrisure. All of them were in the second half of the season, where the pressure really builds on either team. The Steelers lost two of these three games: they played the Green Bay Packers on October 26 and the Buffalo Bills on November 30, after the Panthers played at Acrisure the day before.

Last season, the worn-out field made itself known in the Week 6 clash against the Cleveland Browns. Star kicker Chris Boswell recorded an unusual field goal miss after slipping on the ground. After the game, Aaron Rodgers said that the field had become “borderline unplayable.”

The ground was also visibly torn up in some areas. Players from both teams also raised the matter with the NFLPA later on. No wonder Heinz Field got an F in the survey after this.

Rooney II would want this new field to give players some respite.

On a side note, when the Steelers fans come to the Acrisure this year, he’s also got some other upgrades to hopefully keep them coming.

Acrisure Stadium is getting a makeover

The Steelers are continuing to improve Acrisure Stadium. Per the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Pittsburgh Sports and Exhibition Authority has approved money to replace nearly 18,000 seats in the next phase of the project. All of these new seats will be installed in the lower-level east end of the stadium and will cost about $5.8 million.

This comes after officials approved another $6.2 million last October for the first phase of the project. Workers have already started replacing seats on the upper deck.

Per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Steelers want to replace more than 58,700 of the stadium’s 68,400 seats by 2028. The project will cost about $17.8 million.

Most of the new seats (85%) will be yellow, while the other 15% will be dark gray. Steelers president Art Rooney II said the team added a second color because “the sea of gold sometimes gets overwhelming.”

Let’s hope the Acrisure gets better reviews from this time.