New York Giants players and their opponents have been complaining for years about the surface at MetLife Stadium. The Giants have been at the top of the league in injuries the past decade and many of those injuries have been blamed on the turf in East Rutherford.
Two Giants players in particular — safeties Landon Collins and Julian Love — tweeted their objections to playing on turf on Saturday afternoon after NFLPA president J.C. Tretter released a statement urging the five NFL venues that use ‘slit film’ turf surfaces.
Billions made off the game and yet we can’t get safe playing surfaces to do our jobs. Enough is enough. #SaferFields
— LANDON COLLINS (@TheHumble_21) November 12, 2022
No one knows the beating that our bodies take on turf more than us – the players. The sport is violent enough. We shouldn’t be taking more damage from the field, too. #SaferFields
— Julian Love (@julianlove27) November 12, 2022
MetLife Stadium is one of five NFL stadiums utilizing ‘slit film’ turf along with Ford Field in Detroit, Minnesota’s U.S. Bank Stadium, the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium.
“The NFL and its experts have agreed with this data and acknowledge that the slit film field is less safe,” Tretter wrote in his release. “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.”
The NFL is rebutting the statement. As per Pro Football Talk, NFL executive V.P. of communications, public affairs, and safety Jeff Miller is claiming that slit-film surfaces “have 2-3 more injuries per year, most of them are ankle sprains — a low-burden injury — whereas slit film also sees a lower rate of fewer high-burden ACL injuries compared to other synthetic fields.”
Miller also stated that “the league and NFLPA’s joint experts did not recommend any changes to surfaces at the meeting but agreed more study is needed.”
