Artificial turf has long been a hot topic for the National Football League. Perhaps things will change now that one of their best players has suffered a devastating injury on the playing surface.
Long-time Green Bay Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari called the league on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday after his former teammate and four-time Most Valuable Player Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon on the fourth offensive play of the New York Jets’ opener.
Well done @nfl. How many more players need to be injured on ARTIFICIAL TURF??! You care more about footballers than us. You are considering removing all artificial turf for the next World Cup. So it’s clearly doable.
I’m fed up…Do better!– David Bakhtiari (@DavidBakhtiari) September 12, 2023
“I’m tired of this…do better!” he wrote.
Rodgers landed with his new team in an April trade following a long saga that included a controversial split with the Packers. Him and Bakhtiari become friends during their 10 years in Green Bay.
In April, the NFL Players Association declared that playing on artificial turf is more dangerous than on grass. NFLPA President JC Tretter – a teammate of Bakhtiari and Rodgers from 2014 to 2016 – shared data showing that 2022 had the biggest difference between injuries sustained on artificial turf versus turf.
Rodgers’ injury occurred at MetLife Stadium, which had new grass installed this offseason after years of problems.
Turf has also caused problems for homeowners who replaced their lawn with it during a recent surge in popularity. There is no need to mow it, but its maintenance is expensive and difficult. Artificial surface can reduce property values by up to 5 percent.
This also contributes to rising global temperatures. Turf may not be water-intensive like grass, but it’s made of plastic – made from petroleum, a dirty energy source – and traps heat. This presents problems for insects and worms, which are beneficial to ecosystems but cannot access the soil if it is covered with a carpet of grass.
In his article on X, Bakhtiari noted that the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup will be played on grass. But for this to happen, eight of the host cities in the United States and Canada will have to grow grass then put it in place where there is now artificial grass.
“Simply put, this is a problem the NFL will not solve because the NFL refuses to acknowledge that there is even a problem,” Professional Football Discussion declared. “The willingness of some owners to swap grass-only pitches for the World Cup will hopefully lead so many people to recognize the problem that the league will have no choice but to finally admit that it There is a problem.”
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