San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle pleaded for NFL stadiums to keep their natural grass fields. NFL stadiums that have hosted World Cup matches have been forced to install natural grass fields to comply with FIFA regulations.
Appearing on the “Pardon My Take” podcast on June 22, Kittle said that the NFL owes it to invest in the health and longevity of its players. The NFL Players’ Association has also repeatedly advocated for natural surfaces.
“Put me on a soapbox, man,” Kittle said on Monday. “If you can put grass in MetLife and in SoFi, I think you could do that year-round if you really gave a [expletive]. I mean, that’s my opinion. I think, if you polled every single player, I would say probably 90 percent would [say] they would prefer a grass field. And I'd say 10 percent would say they don’t care. But 90 percent of guys, they prefer to play on grass. And so, it’s just like, well, you just showed that you can do it, so then, why don’t we do it? Because that’s what the players want to do.”
Kittle added that investing in natural grass is an investment in the players.
“What I learned as a rookie is that your body is your business, and the most money you'll make in your entire lifetime, hopefully, is what you make on a football field,” he said.
“And so that’s the way we have to treat it, and we have to be safe with our bodies and take care of our bodies. And we’re also the NFL’s best investment. When Patrick Mahomes is playing, Josh Allen is playing, Caleb Williams is playing, that’s great for ratings, that’s great for football. ... So, why not just spend a couple extra million dollars, which we know they all have, to just grass all the fields? It doesn’t seem that difficult.”
The National Football League Players’ Association (NFLPA) conducted a player poll on the issue ahead of the World Cup. The union found that 92 percent of players prefer playing on natural grass.
“The temporary installation of natural grass fields for the World Cup is a choice by certain NFL team owners to do for soccer players what they refuse to do for NFL players,” the union wrote in the accompanying Instagram post.
“It’s no longer a question of capability; the technology exists, the expertise exists, and the resources exist to install the high-level grass fields that our players overwhelmingly prefer.”
NFL injury data cited in a blog post by former NFLPA President JC Tretter found that non-contact lower-extremity injuries increased by 28 percent on artificial turf when compared with natural grass, including a 32 percent increase in non-contact knee injuries on turf and a 69 percent increase in non-contact foot/ankle injuries.
But the NFL has disputed those findings. Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said in a 2025 article that there are no “statistically significant differences” between artificial turf and natural grass, and that the relationship between field surface and injuries is complex and affected by player load, fatigue, and cleats.
Eleven NFL stadiums are hosting FIFA World Cup matches. But FIFA heavily favors natural grass or hybrid surfaces that combine natural grass with synthetic fibers stitched together. FIFA has strict regulations on artificial turf, including a licensing program and testing requirements for fully synthetic turf fields.
Despite the NFL’s skepticism, MetLife Stadium has developed a particularly infamous reputation among players. A total of 15 players have suffered season-ending injuries at MetLife since 2020, and most have occurred since 2023, when the stadium installed a novel synthetic surface called FieldTurf.
Multiple players publicly expressed their distaste for playing at MetLife, including Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs and Kittle, in 2025.
“When someone’s field is like the butt of a joke throughout all of social media constantly—like on every NFL meme page, all that stuff, like everybody jokes about how bad it is—I feel like at that point, someone should just take a look at it,” Kittle said after playing the New York Giants at MetLife in November.
“I feel like all fields should have a level of safety to it. I just don’t get why there’s not a standard ... one or two turfs. There shouldn’t be 12 different turfs and 12 different grass fields and then a couple guys have the same things. I just think that’s weird because most other sports—it’s not like basketball players playing on different hardwood. That’s all the same. Soccer players in Europe all playing on really nice grass. So, it’s just weird to me.”
