Following the leak of NFLPA report cards grading each of the 32 NFL teams in several categories and the Pittsburgh Steelers ranking last in the survey, the team has announced that it has plans to address the poor home field conditions that rated an F- grade.
Steelers team president Art Rooney said that the playing surface at Acrisure Stadium will be replaced, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The new field will be laid down with Tahoma 31 Bermuda, a mixture of Bermuda and bluegrass that is more tolerant to cold conditions. Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field and Chicago’s Soldier Field already use the surface.
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Though this revelation comes after the release of the NFLPA report cards, the Steelers were already working on installing a new field due to a league mandate requiring all playing surfaces to fulfill standards set through lab and field testing.
The field at Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium required being re-sodded several times per season due to wear and tear from NFL, college and high school football games. (Photo by Perry Knotts/Getty Images)
(Perry Knotts via Getty Images)
The Tahoma 31 surface also has to be installed earlier in the year so that the sod can take root properly. When installed too soon before a game, as happened at Super Bowl 57 three years ago, the grass provided poor footing for the players.
Acrisure Stadium’s field has been heavily criticized in recent years. This past season, quarterback Aaron Rodgers called the surface “borderline unplayable” after a Week 6 matchup with the Cleveland Browns.
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Other criticisms of the field include it being “too sandy, too slippery” and “too gooey,” according to the Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac.
Previously, Acrisure Stadium’s field was made of Kentucky bluegrass, which is resilient but couldn’t stand up to the constant wear and tear from Steelers games, University of Pittsburgh football games and high school football contests during the fall. The field required re-sodding two to three times per season, according to Rooney.
“It sounds crazy, but they grow the grass on a plastic sheet first to make sure the roots are growing,” Rooney told reporters at the NFL combine on Thursday. “It’s a different blend of what we have been using. They’ve been using it in other places and it’s been working.”
The Steelers were one of five teams that received an F- grade in the player surveys for poor home field conditions, in addition to the Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Jets and New York Giants (who share the field at MetLife Stadium). The Seattle Seahawks, Carolina Panthers and Buffalo Bills got a grade of F.
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The Steelers president added that the team has not ruled out eventually using artificial turf if the grass needed can’t be produced.
“The only way we would consider it is if the sod farms can’t produce good grass for us,” Rooney said. “We’re kind of at their mercy. If something happened with the sod farms not producing enough of the good grass, we would have to consider a change.”
Pittsburgh also received poor grades in the player surveys for its training room and strength coaches.
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