![]() ![]() There is no guarantee that artificial turf manufacturers will be able to create a product that provides as safe of a surface as natural grass, so we should not sit around hoping that happens. We also challenged cleat manufacturers to design innovative footwear that is safer and tailored to both players’ needs and to specific surfaces. 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.Įarlier this year, the NFL and NFLPA tasked artificial turf manufacturers with developing a surface like natural grass that meets the specifications developed by our respective engineering experts. Specifically, players have a 28% higher rate of non-contact lower extremity injuries when playing on artificial turf. Based on NFL injury data collected from 2012 to 2018, not only was the contact injury rate for lower extremities higher during practices and games held on artificial turf, NFL players consistently experienced a much higher rate of non-contact lower extremity injuries on turf compared to natural surfaces. The data supports the anecdotes you’ll hear from me and other players: artificial turf is significantly harder on the body than grass. On synthetic surfaces, there is less give, meaning our feet, ankles and knees absorb the force, which makes injury more likely to follow. Grass will eventually give, which often releases the cleat prior to reaching an injurious load. The unforgiving nature of artificial turf compounds the grind on the body we already bear from playing a contact sport.įirst, a bit of physics: Professional football players put extremely high levels of force and rotation onto the playing surface. Whenever I practiced on an artificial field surface, my joints felt noticeably stiffer the next day. Once I started experiencing both surfaces interchangeably, I began to understand exactly why my teammates disliked the practices on turf. I played almost exclusively on synthetic turf in college. As a rookie learning the ins and outs of being a professional football player, I remember the collective groan that my older teammates made whenever it was announced that we’d be practicing indoors on artificial turf instead of the usual outdoor grass field. ![]()
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