For a league that rakes in billions of dollars per year, the NFL’s inability to maintain standards for its playing fields has always been perplexing. It now appears to be doing something about it.
According to the Associated Press’ Josh Dubow, the NFL is introducing new enhanced standards for its surfaces that teams will have to implement by the start of the 2028 season. Each team will reportedly be provided with “a library of approved and accredited NFL fields” before the start of next season.
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In the meantime, any new field will have to meet the standards, which are approved by a joint committee with the NFLPA. NFL field director Nick Pappas’ comment, via the AP:
“It’s sort of a red, yellow, green effect, where we’re obviously trying to phase out fields that we have determined to be less ideal than newer fields coming into the industry,” he said. “This is a big step for us. This is something that I think has been a great outcome from the Joint Surfaces Committee of the work, the deployment and development of devices determining the appropriate metrics, and ultimately providing us with a way to substantiate the quality of fields more so than we ever have in the past.”
While much of the past criticism has been aimed at some of the notoriously hard artificial turf fields, it’s unclear if these standards will force teams to move on from such surfaces.
Players and their union have maligned surfaces such as MetLife Stadium’s FieldTurf for years, claiming they increase injury risk. On the other end of the spectrum, there are also natural grass fields like the Washington Commanders’ Northwest Stadium that have come under fire in the past for wearing out to a dangerous level. It ultimately comes down to quality, and some teams simply don’t want to pay the cost of natural grass maintenance.
The players certainly noticed when some NFL stadiums that use artificial turf said they would change their surface to grass for the 2026 World Cup in North America.
Artificial turf like this from MetLife Stadium is a sight few NFL players enjoy. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
(Sarah Stier via Getty Images)
The NFL has defended its artificial surfaces against the NFLPA’s criticisms, with chief medical officer Allen Sills claiming to the AP there is no “statistically significant differences” in lower extremity injuries or concussions attributable to the type of playing surface.
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Ultimately, the NFL seems to be seeking consistency above all. Testing reportedly consists of a traction testing device that simulates the movements of an NFL game and an impact test to determine the firmness of the field.
We’ll see how that works out in a couple years.
