The Denver Broncos will take on the New York Jets in London, England, this weekend. The game will be played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, a beautiful 62,850-seat venue that opened in 2019.

When the Spurs play their Premier League soccer games at the stadium, they use GrassMaster, a hybrid grass that mixes natural grass with artificial fibres. When NFL teams visit, though, they take out the hybrid and bring in artificial turf for American football games.

Broncos coach Sean Payton gave an honest answer this week when asked about playing on turf.

“Every player in our league would love to be playing on grass,” Payton said after Wednesday’s practice. “The World Cup is coming soon [to the United States]. A lot of those fields will be — they’ll all be grass. That’s the preferred surface. I remember when I was young playing here in Leicester, we would play on the AstroTurf fields, and you would put a lot of sand on it so the ball wouldn’t bounce because obviously most of the sporting events on it were English football or soccer.

“Now that’s a tough surface to play football on with so much sand. We would finish a game with just bruises and scrapes everywhere. The grass surface is by far the nicest and the preferred surface for any player. All the injury information and the wear-and-tear, it’s much easier.”

FIFA will use 11 NFL stadiums when the USA co-hosts the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada next summer. All of the NFL stadiums — even the indoor venues — will install natural grass for that soccer tournament. NFL players have made it clear over the years that they prefer natural grass over artificial turf, but some NFL owners opt to continue playing on turf because it’s cheaper.

The Broncos have a natural playing surface at Empower Field at Mile High, and the team’s ownership group paid $400,000 to have a new grass field installed ahead of the team’s season finale in 2022, citing player safety. Denver’s players can look forward to playing on a natural surface when the team returns home to host the New York Giants in Week 7.

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