The Packer lost star pass rusher, Rashan Gary, to a torn ACL this past Sunday at Ford Field, and Left Tackle David Bakhtiari believes he knows the Culprit. Turf Fields.
Bakhtiari became the latest NFL player to come out and blast the league’s inability to protect player safety by allowing certain organizations to continue to use a certain type of turf field.
He cited the disparity between turf fields and grass fields and spoke about how there will likely be “10 more players (who) will go down this season with completely avoidable non-contact injuries.”
He also spoke about how these same teams will cater to European Soccer teams and change their turf fields to grass fields for them but still refuse to have grass fields for their own players, ignoring the very real issues about player safety. Kicker Mason Crosby also said something similar.
Bakhtiari went out of his way to retweet a slew of current and former players talking about how they would prefer a grass field to a turf one due to safety concern.
This whole firestorm started on Twitter when the NFLPA’s Twitter account tweeted out their president JC Tretter’s latest column about what can be done to keep players healthy and active on gameday. The number one topic Tretter talked about was Slit Film Turf and how it needs to be eliminated.
Tretter spoke about how statistically, this type of turf leads to more injuries that are non-contact that occur in the lower extremities and cause players to miss more time. He went on to highlight the seven teams that play on this type of turf (Minnesota Vikings, New York Jets, New York Giants, Detroit Lions, Cincinnati Bengals, New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts) and called for them to change their fields.
While there are few things that players around the league can agree on, it seems like they are all in solidarity with one another when it comes to getting rid of Slit Film Turf and the avoidable dangers that this type of field brings.
