Guest column by Zachary O. Binney
As fun as sandlot and back-alley football can be, nothing beats a flawless 160-by-360-foot rectangle of Bermuda or Kentucky bluegrass for a game. Fans want to see a competition between the best players in the game decided by skill, not the whims of the soil, plastic, or rubber under their feet. But NFL stadiums have a surprising array of surfaces on which these players sprint, leap, block, tackle, and cut: two main kinds of grass and eight different artificial turfs have been used between 2007 and 2015.
The impacts of certain kinds of artificial turf on injuries have been investigated before.