On Saturday, the NFL Players Association officially renewed its demands for safer field conditions.
NFLPA president JC Tretter wants the league to improve its playing surfaces due to an uptick in unnecessary injuries.
“Advocating for safer working conditions is a core job of our union, and there are few greater examples of this than raising the standards of the fields we practice and play on,” the NFLPA said. “Week after week, we have heard players sound off on the need to improve our fields, too often after a player suffers an injury. This week, we have seen the NFL PR machine go into overdrive to spin a more favorable narrative to what the union and players know is a problem.
“If the NFL is serious about their claims that they make data-based decisions and that they care about player safety, then we have some actionable items for them.”
The NFLPA is calling for the league to immediately ban and replace any surfaces that are made of slit film turf. Additionally, the union wants to raise the field standards and test the safety of all surfaces.
Those weren’t the only requests the NFLPA made. They no longer want games to be played on fields with clear visual abnormalities.
The final demand Tretter made was that excess people and dangerous equipment is removed from the sidelines. Denver Broncos linebacker Aaron Patrick suffered a season-ending injury after colliding with a staff member on the sideline in October.
The ball is officially in the NFL’s court.