MetLife Stadium switched from turf to grass for World Cup, but Jets and Giants players want to see it stay

Brian Burns plays his games at MetLife Stadium, but this summer he will be in the building in a different capacity. The Giants’ Pro Bowl outside linebacker said he expects to catch some of the eight World Cup games at the football stadium.

 The biggest difference he'll notice right away is that the artificial turf field he normally plays his football games on is gone — or at least gone from sight — having been replaced by a natural grass surface for the soccer events. That was part of the agreement MetLife and the 10 other NFL venues that will host World Cup matches in the United States this summer made with FIFA, that they would roll out the green carpet for their soccer-playing temporary tenants.

What irks many football players here and in those other cities, though, is that those natural grass surfaces will be removed by the time they return to start playing their own games in August.

“I wish they would keep the grass the whole time,” Burns told Newsday. “Grass just feels better. Everybody knows that.”

In a recent survey, 92% of 1,700 NFL players told the NFL Players Association they preferred natural grass to artificial turf. The American Journal of Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine published a study in 2024 that revealed NFL players suffered a higher rate of injuries on artificial turf compared to natural grass. The study said lower extremity injuries for the 2021 and 2022 seasons combined were 1.22 injuries per game on natural grass compared to 1.42 injuries per game on artificial turf.

"There is something about the feeling of being on grass, the body feels different,” NFLPA executive director JC Tretter said last month on the “Not Just Football” podcast. “I think if you ask the coaches, just standing on grass versus standing on turf for three hours feels different. There is something there that impacts the body."

And MetLife Stadium’s turf has, over the years, developed a reputation — mostly perceived rather than backed up by data — as a particularly dangerous surface with some high-profile and season-altering injuries taking place there over recent years, from Aaron Rodgers’ torn Achilles to Malik Nabers’ torn ACL. In the Giants’ very first practice in the building back in 2010, they lost receiver Domenik Hixon to a torn ACL when his right foot caught in the turf.

Even new Giants coach John Harbaugh, who led teams that played home games on natural grass for 19 years in Baltimore, seemed to indicate he’d prefer if MetLife Stadium kept the soccer surface for his football season . . . although the dicey politics of the topic turned the normally straightforward talker into a cagey question-dodger.

“You're going to try to draw me into the turf versus grass [debate],” Harbaugh said. “[NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell] is going to call me up and he's going to get mad at me because I'm probably not going to say what he wants me to say. So that's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say. It's a good surface out there. It's a good artificial surface, I'll say that.”

The NFL and NFLPA agreed late last year to a new model for selecting playing surfaces in stadiums, one that will require teams to choose from an approved set of metrics and styles for both natural and synthetic fields. The policy will apply to any teams that plan to replace their surfaces for the 2026 season. By the 2028 season, all stadiums will be required to have approved fields.

Still, as another Giants linebacker, Tremaine Edmunds, said: “If you are a player you definitely prefer grass.”

It’s obviously frustrating, therefore, for NFL players to watch soccer teams from around the world enjoy what they see as the luxury of playing on natural grass surfaces that they themselves won’t be able to touch.

“I remember in 2012 or 2013, Brazil and Portugal played a friendly at Gillette Stadium,” former Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty said recently on the “Pro Football Talk” show on NBC Sports. “It’s the most disrespectful thing as a player when you see them pouring all this dirt and putting this grass surface on top of your field because the field’s not adequate enough for these soccer players, and you know you’re about to play on this field time and time again and watch guys get hurt on it.”

Soccer grass is not football grass

Considering all the preferences, all the millions of dollars invested into the success and optimization of NFL players, and even the pull that someone the stature of Harbaugh has within an organization, why, then, do the two primary tenants of MetLife Stadium, the Giants and Jets, still play on artificial turf?

Giants president and CEO John Mara addressed the topic in 2024 shortly after MetLife was awarded its slate of World Cup games, including the coveted championship match.

“I want to get to the point where the experts can tell us that late in the season we can have a safe, playable grass field,” he said. “When we get to that point, then maybe we'll make the switch. We're not there yet. With the amount of events in our building, particularly during the football season, having two teams there, and how many times we had back-to-back games where it rained during the first game, I can't imagine what a grass field would look like on that second day.”

According to Sportico, new grass sod fields for NFL stadiums cost between $300,000 and $500,000 and need to be replaced once or twice a season depending upon usage. Artificial turf can cost between $1 million and $2 million but typically lasts two to three seasons. At MetLife Stadium, however, those typical costs would be atypical. Besides being home to two NFL team MetLife hosts various shows from concerts to graduation ceremonies to WrestleMania-type events throughout the year, including during football seasons.

The Giants have experimented with natural grass for football in the past. From 2000 to 2002 — mostly to accommodate the MetroStars of MLS — Giants Stadium was fitted with a system of some 6,000 interlocking natural grass trays. The surfaces failed to root properly and created an uneven, divot-filled mess that neither the soccer nor football players could function on properly.

“Players prefer playing on grass, no question about it,” Mara said. “I would like to get there someday. We're not there yet.”

It’s not as easy as just leaving the soccer fields in place for the coming football season. The differences are subtle, but FIFA’s soccer grass is different than NFL football grass. Soccer uses a “hybrid” system that allows natural grass to grow with the reinforcement of synthetic fibers. It’s the same kind of turf that is used throughout Europe and most of the rest of the world where growing seasons are shorter, different species of grass exist, and the needs of athletes vary.

“I know for a fact that soccer grass is way different than football grass,” Jets tight end Jeremy Ruckert told Newsday. “That's why even when we go to London and play on those fields, they put turf out there. I don't think people quite understand that, that grass for soccer has a lot less traction. It holds a lot less traction for players, and football is a lot heavier. There's a lot more violent movements, and their grass is made for the ball to continue to just keep skidding along.”

Even the NFL facilities that have natural surfaces to begin with are hosting World Cup matches such as the sites in San Francisco, Kansas City, Miami and Philadelphia, therefore, are having to swap out their normal turfs for the FIFA hybrids. And, according to NFL fields director Nick Pappas, all of them will go back to their original surfaces, whether real or artificial, once their World Cup events are over.

Grass over turf

Each of the stadium overhauls had unique challenges based on their climate, architecture and other factors. Several of them including ones in Atlanta, Houston and Dallas have been growing their new soccer lawns indoors with the help of complex lighting and watering systems.

MetLife Stadium’s transformation is perhaps one of the simpler. The artificial turf that the Giants and Jets normally play on has remained in place, unlike other venues. Gillette Stadium in New England, for example, took theirs out to be replaced by the natural grass.

Pappas, who has been working closely with all of the NFL facilities hosting the World Cup, told Newsday that MetLife is using a “shallow pitch profile” system. The football field is first covered with an impermeable layer of plastic that blocks any contamination of the artificial turf by the root systems. Then there is a “permavoid” that is essentially an air-gap system that creates space for drainage as well as some give to the finished surface. The grass is then placed on top of that.

“The only adjustment they had to make to their plan was to switch their location of where they got their grass,” Pappas said of MetLife’s process. “They were planning to get their grass out of New Jersey but with a pretty challenging winter in the northeast that made them have to go a little farther south from another venue that provides grass for NFL fields in the Carolina region.”

It also makes for a more straightforward cleanup afterward. Because MetLife Stadium is hosting the World Cup final, the venue will have one of the shortest turnarounds between soccer and football. Its last soccer match will be played there on July 19. By Aug. 1, it will host a concert by K-pop band BTS. Several other acts will come through in the early part of the month. Then on Aug. 14, it’s back to football as the Jets host the Buccaneers in their preseason opener. The Giants will host the Vikings in their preseason debut the following day on Aug. 15.

“Each of those venues has a different timeline on preparation and preparing to come out of FIFA and get ready for whatever their next event is,” Pappas said. “There are probably some complexities no matter where you go, but obviously everyone’s goal is to wrap your game schedule and move on.”

Ironically enough, these World Cup games may help get the NFL to where Mara said he wants to be with natural surfaces becoming more universal and able to withstand the rigors of football through a challenging fall and winter. The sharing of techniques and data between the league and FIFA is expanding the understanding each of the organizations has regarding surface science.

“Having an event this unique, of this scale, offers an opportunity for us to take advantage of the learning opportunities at the end of the event or during the event,” Pappas said. “What worked? What didn’t work? What was the anecdotal feedback? We’re going to be looking at everything trying to work together and share ideas . . . It’s going to be interesting to watch. I am excited to see it all unfold.”

That would be good news for NFL players. It could mean that while watching soccer games on natural grass surfaces in their stadiums will still make them jealous, they may have another emotion as well: Hope.

“We’ll see,” Edmunds, the Giants linebacker, told Newsday of the anticipated change back to artificial turf at MetLife Stadium at the end of July. “They may change their mind and keep the grass over there for us. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

Newsday's Al Iannazzone contributed to this report.