NFLPA President Calls for Immediate Changes to Fields Amid Injury Concerns

He’s not the first to speak out about the use of slit turf at six different stadiums around the league.

NFL players association president JC Tretter called upon the NFL to immediately ban the use of slit film turf around the league—among other changes—in a letter released publicly on Saturday.

In the note that Tretter sent to the league and posted on the NFLPA website, he said that he recently spoke to a number of players who expressed concerns about slit film turf fields. Tretter said that games played on the surface have higher in-game injury rates compared to other playing surfaces, particularly when it comes to non-contact, foot and ankle injuries.

“The NFL and its experts have agreed with this data and acknowledge that the slit film field is less safe,” Tretter wrote. “Player leadership wrote a letter to the NFL this week demanding the immediate removal of these fields and a ban on them going forward, both in stadiums and for practice fields. The NFL has not only refused to mandate this change immediately, but they have also refused to commit to mandating a change away from slit film in the future at all.”

Slit film turf is currently used in six stadiums around the league: MetLife Stadium (Giants and Jets), Ford Field (Lions), U.S. Bank Stadium (Vikings), Caesars Superdome (Saints), Lucas Oil Stadium (Colts) and Paycor Stadium (Bengals).

Tretter didn’t stop in the letter after calling for the ban on slit film turf. He also called for the NFL to not allow games on fields with obvious visual abnormalities and to raise the standard for its field safety tests. Finally, he called for the league to clear excess people and dangerous equipment from the sidelines. 

“The players are frustrated,” Tretter wrote. “We simply want a safer workplace. The NFL has an obligation to provide the safest work environment possible. They are not living up to that standard.

“We play one of the most dangerous sports in the world; it shouldn’t be more dangerous because the clubs won’t do anything to remove the simple injury risks on practice and playing surfaces. If the league wants to actually use data to drive its decisions, then do it already. We’ve been waiting for years for some of these changes.”

Tretter isn’t the first player to call attention to dangerous playing surfaces. Earlier in the year, Rams star wide receiver Cooper Kupp pointed out the discrepancies between playing on grass and playing on turf and most recently, Packers linebacker De’Vondre Campbell voiced his frustration about playing on turf that was “literally like concrete.”

Just earlier this week, former players Richard Sherman and Andrew Whitworth raised the issue during Amazon’s Thursday Night Football postgame show.

“It needs to change immediately,” Sherman said, per All Bengals. “The league champions player safety. And when there’s clear evidence of a playing surface being dangerous—there’s nine more serious injuries on this surface than even other turfs—like, you need to change it now.

“You get on it immediately. There has been 15–18 more injuries just this season. So that data that they compiled hasn’t included this season. … As a player, there’s no reason for that kind of risk. These are outdoor stadiums. … They can change that. The indoor stadiums—cool, there’s an argument there. But when you can change the surface, it should be grass. … Player safety is nonnegotiable.”

As Tretter makes the argument on behalf of the players, internal league data acquired by ESPN’s Kevin Seifert shows that the rate of non-contact injuries to the knee, ankle and foot has been roughly the same on natural and artificial playing surfaces in recent years. The rate of injury became nearly identical in 2021 and NFL executive vice president of communications Jeff Miller said the ratio “replicated” during the 2022 preseason.

Data compiled for the NFL and NFLPA shows that injury rates on non-contact injuries to lower extremities are statistically the same on artificial turf vs. natural surfaces. Important context in the ongoing debate. pic.twitter.com/DAsPWBEdqC

— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) November 9, 2022

Full data for the 2022 season will be compiled at the end of the campaign.