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Should Fedex Field upgrade and get Synthetic Turf


DubMoney

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Leave it as grass and quit having concerts and other crap prior to games to tear it up.

That aint happening. Dan aint turning down a quick buck....

Don't the Nats have natural grass. It was just a Bruce Springsteen Concert here 2 weeks ago. I guess it is easier to maintain a baseball field then it is a football field. :whoknows:

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That aint happening. Dan aint turning down a quick buck....

Don't the Nats have natural grass. It was just a Bruce Springsteen Concert here 2 weeks ago. I guess it is easier to maintain a baseball field then it is a football field. :whoknows:

I know it..I think it was a U2 concert that tore the field to **** before Cooley screwed up his knee...in part to the crappy turf. Maybe the synthetic would hold up better to all of the non foorball crap.

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Guest Spearfeather
A lot of this seems to boil down to some weird, "old school" mentality about where and how football should be played other than an objective analysis of whether or not grass is actually better.

Can anyone advocating keeping a grass field explain why it's better to have a grass field for any other reason that it's aesthetically pleasing to see grass stains and football is "meant" to be played on grass?

Stay with the real stuff.

http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/story/09000d5d81e1a8d0/article/player-survey-reveals-arizona-indy-have-best-fields-in-nfl

Grass was by far the preferred playing surface, with 69 percent of the players choosing it.

Nearly 90 percent of the players believe artificial turf causes more soreness and fatigue and is more likely to shorten their careers, while 82 percent said such surfaces are more likely to contribute to injuries.

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I'm torn on this. I like having the grass in the sense that I like being a bit old school and different. What other NFL stadiums still use regular grass? But it's true that the turf surfaces would let the players play faster and look better. Honestly, i probably don't care that much either way. I like the grass but wouldn't be pissed at all if they changed it.

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I wonder if the players being surveyed realise places like GB and Denver have implemented the hybrid turf and are still basing this off the old astroturf and field turf fields in use today?

There's certainly been no noticeable increase in injuries from the soccer and rugby clubs using the system. And those players seem real impressed by the high quality of the field all year long.

Hail.

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I prefer grass for aesthetic reasons. I'm a purist I guess. I just think football is supposed to be played on grass. I like mud and grass stains on the uniforms.

The other main considerations outside of aesthetics are safety and speed.

Compared to the old artificial turf, grass was much safer. That does not appear to be the case with the new artificial surfaces though. The new turf is basically just like grass, and it is advertised that way, although the people who make it have put a lot of money into studies that supposedly show it to be even safer than grass, but the majority of players still say they think the grass is safer. I think the truth is that the new artificial surfaces are basically the equivalent of natural grass in terms of safety. If it can be shown by somebody in an independent study that the new turf really is safer than grass, then I suppose that might be a compelling reason to make the switch, even for a purist like me.

The artificial surfaces are supposed to be "faster," but frankly I think that is not all that important since both teams play the game on the same surface.

All other things being equal, I would rather stick with natural grass.

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It's funny to me people don't "get" the grass stains, mud etc. It adds another dimension to the game, to the personalities of teams, weather, climate, etc. "Frozen tundra," etc.

When the Minnesota Vikings got a dome, they lost a lot of their personality and became more sterile and boring to me. I remember when they had to go to L.A. to play a playoff game with the Rams and it was supposed to be a huge advantage for the Rams that year; but it rained torrentially that day in L.A., and within minutes you couldn't tell which team was which or where the yard lines were. And...it was awesome!

If that game had been in a turfed dome, I probably wouldn't even remember it.

I'm not a big fan of injecting another dimension of boring expectation and similarity into the game. Let the elements matter.

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That's the thing man.

Artificial turf technology and research is now producing a product that far removed from the rock hard version of the 80's it's unrecognizable. It's now about as close to natural grass as it's possible to get.

Maybe the stuff at NFL fields is a lot better than the fields at Arlington and local high schools, but I'm not sure if it's that different. And if it isn't, it's crap. It's like a thin layer of rubber on top of concrete. Might as well have them play on that tartan (?) floor they used to have in Reynolds Coliseum.

"If a horse can't eat it, I don't want to play on it."

Wise words.

And, guys, turf ain't football.

---------- Post added September-29th-2012 at 10:03 AM ----------

Btw, can someone tell me what that dust is that gets kicked up on the field turf? Is it sand or something?

In the fields I've played on, it's granulated rubber -- essentially shredded tires, sometimes mixed with conventional sand.

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  • 2 months later...

The ownership needs to do something about this field. It's a mess. It's a mess after ONE game is played on it, let alone a full season plus some misc. NCAA games. They either need to be more diligent about replacing the sod on a regular basis, or putting in Fieldturf. When they are running, it looks like they're playing beach volleyball.

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I could go for this, mostly because I was going to say that we shouldn't switch to turf bc then FedEx couldn't host soccer games.

They could do what M&T bank stadium for the Liverpool/Hot Spurs game this summer and lay sod overtop. That worked fine.

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