Why worries about forever chemicals and injuries might push the NFL to ditch artificial turf

Star players come and go. Franchises move to new cities. Penalty rules evolve. For decades, though, one thing has remained fairly consistent in the National Football League: Athletes loathe playing on artificial turf.

It was true in the 1980s and 1990s, when Seth Joyner was one of the league’s most feared linebackers for 13 seasons, eight of which he spent with the Philadelphia Eagles. “AstroTurf? That stuff,” Joyner recently told The Inquirer, “was the worst thing ever invented.”

Sentiments were similar in 2001, when 1,280 players were asked by their union, the NFLPA, to rank fields across the league. The worst playing surface, the players agreed, belonged to the fake grass at Philadelphia’s decrepit Veterans Stadium.

» READ MORE: We tested the Vet's turf and found dangerous chemicals

Twenty-two years later, the league has a fleet of state-of-the-art stadiums, including seven that each cost at least $1.1 billion to build, and feature every imaginable amenity, from fireplaces and concierge staffs to solar-powered pedestrian bridges. Yet in 14 stadiums, football is played on artificial turf.

In the wake of New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffering a season-ending Achilles injury when he was tackled Sept. 11 on rain-slicked turf at New York’s MetLife Stadium, the NFLPA — and a growing number of fed-up players — are demanding that the NFL replace turf fields with natural grass.

“In 10 of the previous 11 years, the data has shown the same exact thing — grass is significantly safer than turf when it comes to player injury rate,” JC Tretter, the NFLPA’s president, wrote in an email.

For the first time, the players’ union is citing another health-related drawback to artificial turf: PFAS, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are used in its manufacturing process. These pervasive “forever chemicals” have been used in firefighting gear, nonstick cookware, food packaging, and makeup, and have contaminated drinking water. They don’t break down in the environment, and stay in the human body for years.

In March, an Inquirer investigation, Field of Dread, found that turf that had blanketed the Vet’s field between 1977 and 1981 still contained 16 different types of PFAS, which the EPA has linked to cancer, asthma, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, and immunity to fight infections.

Six former Philadelphia Phillies who spent parts of their careers at Veterans Stadium between 1971 and 2003 have died from glioblastoma — about three times the average rate of this aggressive form of brain cancer among adult men in the U.S.

» READ MORE: What to know about ‘forever chemicals,’ artificial turf, and Phillies cancer deaths

The Eagles haven’t suffered similar tragedies. But the team played just eight regular season games at the Vet each year, during the cooler fall and winter months. The Phillies, meanwhile, played 81 games at the Vet during the spring and summer, when temperatures on the turf, which trapped heat, sometimes soared to 165 degrees. Experts have said intense heat causes material that contain PFAS to release toxic vapors, which can be inhaled.

Thom Mayer, the NFLPA’s medical director, said PFAS in turf are “an issue of considerable concern,” and called for manufacturers to disclose whether turf or infill material that is used by the NFL contains PFAS.

“Our question,” Mayer said, “to those who would put players’ health at risk is, ‘If that were your brother, son or father exposed to those chemicals, would you take that risk?’”

The NFL did not address Inquirer questions about PFAS in artificial turf on the record.

In an emailed statement, Jeff Miller, an NFL vice president who oversees health and safety, wrote that the league is “actively working with the NFLPA to gain a better understanding of what contributes to injury on both synthetic and natural grass surfaces.”

This debate is coinciding with what appears to be a critical moment for the artificial turf industry. Last week, California legislators passed a bill that would ban the sale of artificial turf containing PFAS.

In January, New York passed a similar law that will take effect Dec. 31, 2024. Lawmakers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont have also introduced bills to regulate PFAS in turf.

The Synthetic Turf Council, a national organization that represents manufacturers, builders, and infill material suppliers, opposed the California legislation, which initially called for the ban on turf containing PFAS to begin in 2024, unless amended.

» READ MORE: Artificial turf was once touted as a “magic carpet.” But some scientists are sounding the alarm because it typically contains “forever chemicals.”

“These dates do not provide enough time for manufacturers and suppliers to develop viable alternatives for the marketplace,” Melanie Taylor, the turf council’s president and CEO, wrote in a June 21 letter to California legislators.

The state’s sales ban will not take effect until January 2026.

Taylor’s assertion that manufacturers will need several years to develop PFAS-free turf was significant. Earlier this year, when asked by The Inquirer if current generations of artificial turf contained forever chemicals, she didn’t answer.

Now, in a new reply, Taylor wrote that “most synthetic turf already does not contain intentionally added PFAS …. but we are working hard to verify that in a transparent and accountable way.”

Rodgers’ injury took place just minutes into the 39-year-old’s eagerly anticipated debut with the Jets. More than 22 million viewers tuned into the Monday Night Football game, the largest audience ESPN has attracted since it began televising the program in 2006.

Some veteran players don’t hesitate to share their disdain for artificial turf.

“I think all fields should be grass fields. Playing on artificial turf is just really hard on the body,” Fletcher Cox, 32, the Eagles’ longtime Pro Bowl defensive tackle, said Thursday. “The league’s got to take a look at it.”

Jason Kelce, the team’s six-time Pro Bowl center, said he enjoyed playing on turf in college, because the surface made the game faster. As a 35-year-old in his 13th NFL season, his perspective has changed.

“You feel it. Unquestionably, now, I do think every team should be forced to have grass,” Kelce said. “There’s no question it affects your joints less. I don’t care what studies [team owners] come out with. I’ve played on both. My joints hurt worse in a dome, where there is almost always [turf].”

Joyner, an NFL analyst, argues that players must force the NFL’s hand. “I think the only way you’ll get any change,” he said, “is for the players to say, ‘We’re not playing on it any more.’”

AstroTurf was still considered a technological wonder in 1969, when the fake grass — developed a few years earlier by the Monsanto Chemical Co. — was used for the first time in an NFL game, a match between the Eagles and the Cleveland Browns at University City’s Franklin Field.

Philadelphia officials decided AstroTurf was the ideal playing surface for the $49 million Veterans Stadium, which would open two years later, and host Phillies and Eagles home games.

Monsanto, eager to market its so-called “magic carpet” to other professional sports teams, high schools, and colleges, assured the city that AstroTurf would be durable, safe, and cheaper to maintain than grass.

That proved to be false.

The Vet’s turf had to be replaced five times at a cost of about $8 million, and became synonymous with nightmarish football injuries.

In 1979, Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Jerry Sherk developed a career-ending staph infection after scraping a boil on his arm against the Vet’s turf. Fourteen years later, Chicago Bears wide receiver Wendell Davis ruptured both his patella tendons when his cleats became stuck in the turf. And Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin was left temporarily paralyzed in 1999, when his head slammed onto the field at the Vet, injuring his neck.

“As a younger player, it took me maybe a year or two to realize, ‘Hold up — this is not a good surface to play on,’” said Eric Allen, who played home games on artificial turf for 10 of his 14 seasons as an NFL cornerback — seven years with the Eagles, three with the New Orleans Saints.

Allen remembers witnessing Davis’ knee injury in 1993, and seeing players on other opposing teams warily inspect the Vet’s field before games. After playing games on turf, he said, “everyone was in the training room the next day.”

Fake grass — which was often laid on top of a thin layer of padding, and asphalt — was so prevalent in the league that Allen felt compelled to alter his playing techniques.

“I would never try and tackle a guy and land on my shoulder,” he said.

Instead, Allen — now an analyst for the Las Vegas Raiders’ Silver and Black Productions — tackled receivers around their legs and rolled sideways, like a crocodile spinning its prey. “It made you adjust,” he said.

The NFL, too, has acknowledged the physical toll that artificial turf exacted on players. On its website, the league included AstroTurf on a list of 100 Greatest Game Changers, writing that the fake grass “caused many devastating injuries, especially to the knees, and shortened if not ruined many careers.”

By the early 2000s, many NFL teams began replacing cookie cutter municipal ballparks with modern showplaces.

In 2003, the Eagles moved into the $512 million Lincoln Financial Field. The playing field was 97% natural grass; the remaining 3% consisted of fiber blades that intertwined with grass to stabilize the roots.

Other teams opted for newer generations of artificial turf, which offered more layers of cushioning and support. But Allen argues that no matter how much turf has evolved, it still isn’t ideal for football players who are faster and stronger than their predecessors.

“You have explosive athletes on a surface that’s not natural, that doesn’t have that give, that doesn’t have that shock absorption,” he said. “That’s why you see so many noncontact injuries.”

Former Eagles quarterback Michael Vick spent six of his 13 NFL seasons with the Atlanta Falcons. For the first two years of Vick’s career, the team had an AstroTurf field inside the Georgia Dome, then switched to FieldTurf, another artificial surface.

“I don’t know too much about [PFAS],” Vick said, “but I know if I played more of my career on artificial turf, I wouldn’t have played as long.”

Kelce mentioned “black beads” — small rubber pellets made of ground-up recycled car tires that are used to make turf more durable and flexible. “If anybody’s been on a field on a hot summer’s day, you can smell it,” he said. “There’s an artificial smell coming off it.”

Asked if he worries about being exposed to PFAS, Kelce said: “There are things around us all day that they’re going to find out cause cancer in 20 years, so, I think you just try and live as healthy as possible. But from a player safety standpoint, the grass has been proven to be the best for preventing injuries.”

In November 2022, during an interview on a Dallas sports-talk radio show, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones insisted that there was no merit to complaints about turf-related injuries. The Cowboys’ $1.3 billion AT&T Stadium has a turf field.

“Our league stats don’t see issues with the type of surface that we have, as opposed to natural grass,” Jones said. “We don’t see issues. No facts bear that out.”

Several players, including Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp, and San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa, responded on Twitter by calling for the league to replace turf fields with natural grass. They used the same hashtag: #saferfields.

Joyner said he thinks the NFL, for financial reasons, is reluctant to acknowledge players’ well-documented complaints about turf’s impact on their bodies, and the more complicated issue of PFAS that have been present in the fake grass for decades.

“Why open that can of worms, and have another class-action lawsuit?” he asked, in reference to a $1 billion settlement that the NFL agreed to pay in 2015, after more than 4,500 former players had sued the league, claiming it ignored evidence about the long-term health risks of concussions.

“[The league] is a multibillion dollar corporation,” Joyner said. “There’s an old saying: ‘He who has the gold makes the rules.’”

Both the NFL and the players’ union insist that the story about the safety of artificial turf is told by data. But each side has arrived at different conclusions. The fate of their debate could have ramifications that extend far beyond the league.

Earlier this year, in a post on the NFLPA’s website, Tretter, the union president, shared a chart that compared rates of noncontact injuries per 100 plays from 2015 to 2021. Each year showed that players suffered a higher rate of injuries on artificial turf, except for 2021, when the injury rates were nearly identical.

Tretter accused the NFL of using the 2021 figures to “engage in a PR campaign to convince everyone that the problem didn’t exist — which further eroded the league’s credibility with players when it comes to addressing health and safety issues.”

But Miller, the NFL vice president, said the league works hand-in-hand with the union to address health and safety issues. “As our research continues, we are confident we’ll be able to drive down injuries on all surfaces,” he said.

In the aftermath of Rodgers’ Achilles injury, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell appeared on the ESPN show First Take, and told Stephen A. Smith that the league wants its decisions about playing surfaces to be led by science.

“We want to go on what’s the best, from an injury standpoint, to prevent the injuries, to give our players the best possible surface to play on,” Goodell said.

“That can’t be done by my feeling of looking at a particular injury. It’s got to be done with a real process, to look at it with medical experts, look at it with engineers, look at it with people on the cleats, look at it on every aspect of what can go into that injury including the training and where a particular player is at any given time.”

Tretter, in his post, noted that a study commissioned by the NFL, and published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that players on turf had a 55% higher rate of missing playing time during regular season games from 2012 to 2018 because of noncontact injuries to their lower extremities.

NFL teams are willing to meet a requirement set by FIFA, the international soccer governing body, which calls for grass fields — or “hybrid reinforcement systems” that consist of millions of synthetic fibers that are stitched beneath and between natural grass — to be used at any stadium that seeks to host World Cup matches. (Lincoln Financial Field will host World Cup games in 2026.)

The league would seemingly have little trouble meeting the cost of a long-term conversion to grass fields for all of its stadiums. In 2022, the NFL’s revenue climbed to nearly $12 billion — more than Major League Baseball, the NBA, or the NHL.

Raoul Reiser II, a biomechanics expert at Colorado State University who studies injury rates on different surfaces, says good grass fields remain the “gold standard.” But the answer is not to ban all artificial turf, he said, because grass requires extensive maintenance, and children would have fewer playfields.

Instead, he said, manufacturers should focus on making turf recyclable, free of PFAS and other potentially harmful chemicals. “It’s a tall order to do that,” he said.

The question of whether PFAS could pose a risk to football players arrives at a moment of increasing national concern about the chemicals.

Congress is seeking to spend more than $100 million on the research and development of firefighting protective gear that doesn’t contain PFAS, in response to claims that the chemicals are contributing to a growing number of firefighter cancer deaths across the U.S. and Canada.

In March, the EPA called for legally enforceable limits on six widely used PFAS that have contaminated water systems across the U.S. — and are considered unsafe to drink at virtually any level — saying it hopes to prevent “thousands of deaths.”

Kyla Bennett, a former official with the EPA, is a science policy director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), and one of the nation’s top experts on PFAS.

If the NFL were to decide to rid its stadiums of artificial turf, it “would be a game changer,” Bennett said — no matter if the league was motivated by player injuries, or worries about their exposure to forever chemicals.

“I think it would be much harder for high schools to say we need artificial turf for our players to be competitive when the most competitive football franchise in the world is saying we don’t want this s—,” she said.

“It would be huge.”