Nfl Players Prefer The Grass Artificial Turf Blamed For Most Serious Injures, Survey Says

Nine out of 10 NFL players believe playing on artificial turf is more likely than grass to cause the kind of serious injuries that shorten careers.

The results of the survey, conducted by the National Football League Players Association, was released Thursday at the Super Bowl. The results were similar to those in a survey done by the union two years ago.

“Given the need of every NFL club to recruit free agents to remain competitive, we expect many clubs will recognize the obvious advantage they gain by converting to or upgrading to a first-class natural grass playing field,” executive director Gene Upshaw said.

Interestingly, the artificial surface of the New Orleans Superdome, site of Sunday’s game between Green Bay and New England, was rated 12th-worst in the league.

Of the 1,034 players polled, 86.7 percent said they preferred grass over artificial playing surfaces; 6.3 percent preferred turf; and 7 percent had no preference. In the 1994 survey, 85.1 percent preferred grass; 7 percent preferred turf; and 8 percent had no preference.

The survey asked players to rank the surfaces in separate lists - both best and worst. There were some discrepancies.

Among the league’s 29 stadiums - the New York Giants share their New Jersey facility with the Jets - the grass field in Tampa was rated the best. Second was Miami, followed by Jacksonville, Arizona and Kansas.

The top 14 were all grass fields. Oakland’s grass field, rated No. 17th, was the only grass field rated below an artificial surface. The artificial surfaces in Dallas and Atlanta ranked ahead of Oakland at Nos. 15 and 16.

Separately, the players were asked to rank the worst fields. Philadelphia was rated the worst field, just as it had been in the 1994 survey. The next four were Cincinnati, Houston, Pittsburgh and New Jersey. Those five also occupied the bottom of the best list in a different order.

“We have been working with the players union under the new collective bargain agreement to improve playing conditions on both artificial turf as well as natural grass fields,” NFL spokesman Joe Browne said. “We’ll discuss this latest survey with them.”

Players blamed artificial turf for a host of problems. They rated it as more likely than grass to cause:

career-shortening injuries, 90.9 percent to 0.2 percent;

all injuries, 93.4 percent to 0.9 percent;

more fatigue, 58.9 percent to 13.5;

more soreness, 94.8 to 1.3.

Another 52.5 percent said they had suffered one or more injuries on artificial turf that they believed would not have occurred on a grass field.

Players also were asked how important a factor playing on a grass field was in their choice of teams at contract time. Only 33 percent answered very important; 41 percent answered somewhat important; and 26 percent responded not important.