Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s wife, Kelly, articulated what many football fans have been feeling about turf fields in two posts to her Instagram story on Wednesday.
“GET RID OF TURF. PLEASE. / Will it fix everything? No. Will it eliminate injuries? Absolutely not. But my goodness, wouldn’t it be a step in the right direction?” Stafford’s caption read.
“You want your ‘stars’ to last in this league? The guys who bring in the viewers, fill the stadiums, sell the jerseys, and make this league billions? Then why aren’t we doing EVERYTHING we can to protect them? / We know there are serious concerns about turf and the injuries that come with playing on it. Knees, ankles, ligaments… you name it. / But what really gets me is the HEAD,” she continued.
A study published in August found that at least 1 in 4 NFL players who died in a five-year span had CTE.
“Listen, I know what sport my husband plays. I know what these men signed up for. Football is physical. It’s violent. Heads are going to collide. Bodies are going to hit the ground. That part of the game isn’t going away…”
Stafford followed this up with another post to her story that read, “But here’s the thing… / We can’t always control what these players hit. But we sure as hell can control what they land on. / And if there’s a chance that changing the surface beneath them could reduce even ONE serious injury, shouldn’t we be doing everything possible to make that happen?”
A 2023 NFL study examined 1,096 diagnosed concussions across 1,830 games from 2012 to 2019 and estimated that concussion incidence was approximately 22% lower on grass compared to turf. Although other studies haven’t been as conclusive on whether grass fields are safer for head injuries than turf.
Stafford added, “I’ve watched what this game takes from these men. I’ve seen the injuries, the surgeries, the pain they play through, and the toll it can take on their head long after the final whistle. / And I love this game. Our family loves this game. That’s exactly WHY I want it to be better.
“Because this isn’t just about the NFL. It’s about the kids watching. The kids dreaming of playing on Sundays. The colleges, the high schools, the youth leagues that look to the NFL to set the standard. / So SET IT,” Stafford continued.
“You have the money. You have the resources. You have the ability to lead the way. / No, grass isn’t going to solve every problem. But doing nothing because we can’t fix everything? That’s not good enough. @nfl,” she concluded.
Kelly Stafford is clearly worried about the impact of head trauma on NFL Players.
Has husband has played in 18 NFL seasons and has been placed in concussion protocol several times during his career.
