Right now in some of the most expensive stadiums in America, the floor is being ripped apart to make way for natural grass. But this isn’t for the NFL stars who bleed for their franchises every Sunday but for a soccer tournament. The worst part, is that the players have been asking for grass fields since 1966, and now when finally these stadiums are getting an upgrade, it’s only a temporary one. Because these grass installations are expected to be gone before the NFL season even begins! And some are done keeping quiet about it. 

JC Tretter, the executive director of the NFLPA, has been one of the loudest voices calling out the irony. “You look at FIFA; they’re rolling out the green carpet for soccer players. And that has become the norm,” Tretter said. “What we want is good grass fields.” In fact when the NFLPA conducted a poll with 1,700 players, 92% of them stuck with grass fields. They felt like grass had a lower impact on their bodies than the turf. But not everyone is of this opinion. Some, like Pat McAfee, are giving a different perspective altogether. 

Surprisingly, McAfee, in the latest episode of The Pat McAfee Show, projected a different reality, sharing the perspective of JJ Watt. He said, “Soccer grass is obviously different. It’s a little lighter; it’s a little softer. It’s meant for running. Not so much like pushing and all that stuff. So, the grass that’s going into these stadiums is nowhere near what football grass would inevitably have to be anyway. So, there’s always a constant deflection by the NFL.” 

According to McAfee, this is where the NFL pushback comes from. While soccer demands only running and sliding, football demands more physical contact. Football fields must withstand greater torque and push. And turf might be a bit harder, but it doesn’t break or snap under tension as the NFL players tackle and push against each other. He even explained how league officials apparently will respond when players point towards the FIFA standards. 

“As soon as the players say this about the World Cup soccer grass, the NFL goes like, ‘You guys want that grass? If we put that grass in every single stadium, your guys’ argument would look terrible because it would be the worst that we have.’” But for many players, the debate stops being so theoretical once the injuries becomes difficult to ignore.

In 2025, Giants receiver Malik Nabers suffered a torn ACL on a non-contact play at MetLife Stadium, one of the NFL’s most criticized turf fields. That injury reignited the turf war again, because MetLife had a reputation for major non-contact injuries over the years. Former Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. actually reacted to it.  

He called the stadium “DeathLife” and asked the NFL to “get rid of the turf.” Beckham pointed towards the growing list of stars injured there, including Aaron Rodgers, who famously had torn his Achilles during his Jets debut back in 2023. But the reality is that this is a debate that has gone on for decades, actually from 1966.

This was when Houston had introduced the first artificial turf field inside the Astrodome. Players right from that time have complained about how the synthetic surfaces feel harder, how their grip cleats differently, and essentially how it places more stress on their joints and ligaments. But the reality is that their voices had been turned a blind eye because there is a business side of things. 

NFL stadiums today are year-round entertainment venues, and they host concerts, conventions, monster truck rallies, and international sporting events worth millions in revenue. So keeping that in mind, artificial turf is obviously cheaper to maintain and far more durable during constant transitions between events. Players, however, think that they are the ones absorbing the physical cost of those decisions. And Tretter did address this concern right at its head too. 

“I think it’s important for us to have metrics to enforce them, making sure the stadiums are being used predominantly for football games, especially when having concerts and monster truck rallies; those are all things owners make money off. The players don’t make money off it,” he said.

And at its core, the debate is financial in nature. For owners an artificial turf is a long term efficiency play. It is cheaper upfront at roughly around $750,000 to $1.35 million and capable of lasting through 2,800 hours of annual use. Now if you compare to natural grass which gives around 800 hours. That durability matters to them, because they can host events and earn it back. Grass meanwhile only costs $20,000 to $44,000 annually to maintain but it takes nearly 13 years to pay for itself because it cannot withstand that level of constant use. 

Right now, though, the science behind the debate becomes harder to ignore when you look beyond surface-level averages.

Why the Turf vs Grass debate still won’t go away

One of the strongest studies supporting the players’ concerns actually came from Tretter himself. Tretter had conducted a study between 2012 and 2018, revealing a 28% higher rate of incidence of non-contact lower-extremity injuries on turf. Knee injuries increased by 32% and foot and ankle injuries jumped to 69% on turf. And he explained the issue through simple physics. 

“Professional football players put extremely high levels of force and rotation onto the playing surface,” Tretter claimed. “Grass will eventually give, which often releases the cleat prior to reaching an injurious load. On synthetic surfaces, there is less give, meaning our feet, ankles, and knees absorb the force, which makes injury more likely to follow.”

A prospective two-cohort study from 2006 (British Journal of Sports Medicine) had a similar inference. Over 1,000 match hours, the researchers observed that the risk of ankle injuries increased on artificial turf. That certainly demands more attention from the authorities. But they also found that the cohort playing on the artificial turf had lower injury incidence during match play. The rate ratio was 0.66 with a 95% confidence. 

Meanwhile, another study from 2024 (Hawaii Journal of Health and Social Welfare) analyzed the impact of deceleration differences between the two field types. Being the firmer and harder surface, turf obviously showed a significantly greater impact deceleration. This means the players can come to an abrupt stop from a run on turf. But on grass fields, the tension moves to the softer parts of the grass and breaks them. This results in sliding or slipping while trying to come to an abrupt stop. 

However, now all types of turfs are equal, so their effect on player injuries is different too. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the so-called slit film turf, which has a soft feel, was more associated with higher injuries than the monofilament counterparts of natural grass. But all the studies aside, the truth is it all comes down to the players and their needs, and now they need safer playing grounds. 

Till their voices are heard, they will watch from the sidelines as stadiums like the MetLife Stadium, AT&T Stadium, Gillette Stadium, Lumen Field, NRG Stadium, SoFi Stadium, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium are being switched to grass for the tournament. The installation has already begun, with the World Cup set to kick off on June 11.