When it comes to the playing surface at MetLife Stadium, the league says all is well. The union says, “Not so fast.”
Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports reports that the NFL Players Association is “endorsing a thorough investigation of whether the surface may have been improperly certified” for Sunday’s 49ers-Jets game.
“We are very concerned about it being a serious health and safety issue for players -- and turf continuing to be a health and safety issue in general,” an unnamed union source told Robinson.
As noted yesterday, the league’s knee-jerk reliance on the standard field-certification processes overlooks the reality that those same processes have been used for years, and that on occasions fields have been less than ideal.
“Even if the turf passed the minimum safety inspection last week, that doesn’t mean the surface is necessarily a safe one,” the source told Robinson. “So we’ll see what the outcome is when they look at it again more closely this week.”
Again, what’s the harm in conducting a careful and deliberate inspection of the playing surface? If it’s fine, it’s fine. If it’s not, it’s better to know it before another rash of injuries, especially since the 49ers play there again on Sunday.