On grass vs. turf, NFL clings to the injury-rate statistics

As the debate between grass and artificial turf continues, the NFL continues to have one club in its bag.

On a Thursday conference call with reporters, NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller reiterated the league’s default position regarding the two primary playing surfaces.

“We’ve made public injury data on grass and synthetic for many years,” Miller said. “Last three years, there’s no difference between the two in any injury category or overall.”

But that’s only part of the story, obviously. The players strongly prefer grass, given the overall impact on the body. They feel better the next day, because the forces go into the ground on grass. On artificial turf, the forces ricochet back into the player’s bodies.

Beyond that, the occurrence of an injury during a game doesn’t always mean the injury happened at that time. Plenty of injuries occur when an accumulation of wear and tear results in something breaking, tearing, straining, etc.

Miller also pointed out that the grass fields used for the World Cup wouldn’t withstand the demands of pro football games. Frankly, that’s a given; soccer and football have very different requirements when it comes to the manner in which the surface performs. The notion that a FIFA-quality grass field wouldn’t work for NFL games obscures the reality that the NFL wouldn’t use a FIFA-quality field. The NFL would use an NFL-quality field.

The broader takeaway from the World Cup is that grass can be done indoors. The challenge becomes the willingness of owners to make the necessary financial investment, by installing a system that will protect the grass when other events happen or by forgoing the revenue from those non-football activities.

It’s now a collective bargaining issue. And the league undoubtedly would want to share the cost of converting turf fields to grass — including the revenue losses if the only solution in a given venue is to do nothing but play football there.

That’s why the best approach for the players would be not to pressure the league generally but to pressure specific owners. Starting with new Seahawks owner Vinod Khosla, who recently opened the door to making a change from turf to grass in Seattle.