Following a Week 2 defeat of the New York Jets that saw them lose an abundance of players, the San Francisco 49ers publicly complained about the MetLife Stadium turf in East Rutherford, New Jersey, blaming it for the slew of serious injuries.
“That’s as many knee injuries and ankle stuff and people getting caught on the turf as I’ve even been a part of,” 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters. “I know our players talked about it the entire game, just how sticky the turf was. Unfortunately it’s a place we got to go back to next week.”
Several 49ers players also voiced their concerns with the turf, but Giants players and head coach Joe Judge completely dismissed the criticisms, saying they’ve had no issues with it at all.
“Our guys have been on that turf. We had camp in the stadium, that was our home for that month or so. We had our players on the turf every day for some kind of walk thru competitive practice,” Judge said earlier this week. “Leading up to the game last week, not a single player said anything negative along the way to me at all about any of the facilities, specifically the turf. I’ve been on it myself, obviously with the team. I think it’s a good surface.”
The Giants held two intrasquad scrimmages on the MetLife Stadium turf and then opened the regular season against the Pittsburgh Steelers there. In addition to their training camp practices, they sustained zero injuries as a result of the surface.
Despite that, with all the extra eyes on the stadium, representatives from the NFL, NFLPA, MetLife Stadium, the Giants and New York Jets, Field Turf and the independent field inspector all descended on East Rutherford to conduct an additional inspection ahead of Week 3’s game between the Giants and 49ers.
The conclusion? The turf is perfectly fine.
“Yesterday, representatives from the NFL, NFLPA, MetLife Stadium, the Giants and Jets, Field Turf and the independent field inspector conducted an additional review of the field surface at MetLife Stadium. The group again verified that the field meets all applicable standards and protocols for NFL field surfaces,” the NFL said in a Thursday statement.
And so ends this saga… For now.
