Artificial turf has long been a hot topic for the National Football League. Maybe things will change now that one of its best players suffered a devastating injury on the playing surface.
Longtime Green Bay Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari called out the league on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday after former teammate and four-time Most Valuable Player Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon on the fourth offensive play of the New York Jets' first game.
Congrats @nfl. How many more players have to get hurt on ARTIFICIAL TURF??! You care more about soccer players than us. You plan to remove all artificial turf for the World Cup coming up. So clearly it's feasible.
— David Bakhtiari (@DavidBakhtiari) September 12, 2023
I'm sick of this..Do better!
"I'm sick of this … do better!" he wrote.
Rodgers landed with his new team in an April trade following a drawn-out saga that included a contentious split with the Packers. He and Bakhtiari became friends during their 10 years with Green Bay.
In April, the NFL Players Association stated that playing on artificial turf is more dangerous than grass. NFLPA President JC Tretter — a teammate of Bakhtiari and Rodgers from 2014 to 2016 — shared data that showed 2022 featured the greatest discrepancy in injuries suffered on artificial turf and those on grass.
Rodgers' injury occurred at MetLife Stadium, which had new turf installed this offseason after years of issues.
Turf has also presented problems for homeowners who replaced their grass with it during a recent rise in popularity. It doesn't need to be mowed, but it's expensive and difficult to upkeep. The artificial surface can lower property values by as much as 5 percent.
It contributes to rising global temperatures as well. Turf may not guzzle water like grass, but it's made of plastic — which is made from oil, a dirty energy source — and traps heat. It presents problems for insects and worms, which are beneficial to ecosystems but can't access soil if it's covered with a carpet of turf.
In his post on X, Bakhtiari noted the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup will be played on grass. For that to happen, however, eight of the host cities in the United States and Canada will have to grow grass and then put it in place where there is now artificial turf.
"Put simply, it's a problem the NFL won't solve because the NFL refuses to acknowledge that there's even a problem," Pro Football Talk stated. "The willingness of some owners to swap out turf-only fields for the World Cup will hopefully get so many people to recognize the problem that the league will have no choice but to finally concede that a problem exists."
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