The list of National Football League players who have gone down already this season with non-contact injuries could fill quite a Pro Bowl roster. At the quarterback position alone, you’ve got Baltimore Raven Lamar Jackson and Washington Commander Jayden Daniels suffering hamstring injuries and Cincinnati Bengal Joe Burrow and San Francisco 49er Brock Purdy suffering turf toe this season, as I covered in Forbes on October 2. And you’ve gotta wonder whether all of this will intensity the ongoing “turf” battle between players and owners over, well, artificial turf.
Half the NFL stadium fields are now covered by some kind of artificial turf. Yet, the NFL Players Association director Lloyd Howell already said at a press conference in 2024 that “Ninety-two percent of our union wants grass,” meaning natural grass fields. And NFLPA President J.C. Tretter has written a letter arguing that artificial turf is significantly harder on the body than grass