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In the NFL, the playing surface has remained a point of debate with many players arguing for natural grass as opposed to turf. The debate has been going on for quite some time now, but with a recent season-ending injury to Aaron Rodgers, the issue has picked up pace. Many players, including Rodgers' former Green Bay Packers teammate David Bakhtiari, chiming in on the issue.
Recently, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gave his opinion on the hot debate with a different perspective. Goodell claimed that some players prefer turf over natural grass since it's faster.
“You have other players who like playing on the turf field, because it's faster. So you've got mixed opinions. What we want to go on is science, we want to go on what's the best from an injury standpoint … That's how we make decisions, not because I see an injury that I don't like. Ultimately, I want our experts to come back and give it to us,” Goodell explained.
Many players have come forward and taken a dig at Goodell for his unusual take, and among them is Bakhtiari. After hearing his latest comments on the matter, the Packers' offensive tackle blasted the NFL commissioner and said, “What kind of toad poison is the commish smoking?!?
In another Instagram post, Bakhtiari called out Goodell and asked him to name the players who prefer turf over grass. “Name them???? Literally, I want to know who!” Bakhtiari said, per Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
For what it's worth, the numbers do back up the claim that players are more prone to injury on turf rather than grass. The NFLPA has claimed, “Specifically, players have a 28% higher rate of non-contact lower extremity injuries when playing on artificial turf, of those non-contact injuries, players have a 32% higher rate of non-contact knee injuries on turf and a staggering 69% higher rate of non-contact foot/ankle injuries on turf compared to grass.”
Only time can tell how this debate shapes up and if anything materializes at all from this.
