Nearly a dozen NFL stadiums will be putting down natural grass in their stadiums for next month’s FIFA World Cup, after which they’ll pull the grass right out and put turf back on. But NFL players are increasingly pushing for the league to keep the grass on the field.
In a recent appearance on the Not Just Football podcast, NFLPA executive director JC Tretter made it clear that players want “good grass fields.” He said that polling of 1,700 players found that 92-percent prefer playing on grass fields over turf.
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“What we want is good grass fields,” Tretter said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN. “Good, solid fields. You don’t just want to pull out the [municipal] golf course grass. On every field, you want high-quality surfaces. I think one thing is understanding what our players care about. And there is something there that the data hasn’t been able to spit back out at us. Which if you ask every player that we polled, 1,700 players, 92 percent say they want grass over turf.”
Turf has been deemed responsible for a slew of noteworthy injuries in recent years, many of which are season-ending and even career-threatening. Yet, NFL owners that use turf have largely balked at replacing their playing surface with grass.
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The Pushback
The rationale behind using turf instead of grass is that turf is far easier to maintain than grass when the venues have other events such as concerts. It’s pretty much a cost-saving measure.
Tretter acknowledged that future negotiations between the NFLPA and the NFL could include discussions about the playing surfaces.
“I think it’s important for us to have metrics to enforce them, making sure the stadiums are being used predominantly for football games, especially when having concerts and monster truck rallies, those are all things owners make money [from],” Tretter said. “The players don’t make money off it. The idea that, ‘Hey, we’re going to host these events that means we have to put a worse surface on there for you and you don’t actually get any of that money for those events we’re hosting’ isn’t a great thing for the players either. And that is what we have to evaluate for the next deal.”
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Feb 7, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; NFLPA president JC Tretter speaks at the NFLPA Press Conference at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center prior to Super Bowl LVIII. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports© Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
Ultimately, the NFL simply has too many teams that are utilizing turf right now to agree to a sweeping change between now and the start of the 2026 NFL season. And with the current CBA several years away from expiring, there might not be much movement by the league to make a change until then.
Tretter will probably find fighting for grass fields about as challenging as fighting for higher player salaries when the time comes.
This story was originally published by The Spun on May 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the NFL section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.