Turf issues at Gillette

[Patsfanin Philly]

An Eagles-Ravens preseason game was cancelled a few years ago (2001) when the field was found to be non suitable for playing.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/2001/0814/1239539.html

 

[UGAPatsfan]

This is such a mundane example of “the person in charge of ensuring EVERY variable was identical for testing as it would be installed didn’t “. Basic everyday business **** up by a human who’s job it was to catch it.

Happens all the time, as a CEO it pisses me off, but you chalk it up to error.

In this case, it’s the NFL so that’s an expensive **** up because they have to do it AGAIN.

 

[patchick]

In case anybody forgets, Gillette WAS built with a then state-of-the-art grass field, at great expense. It was swapped out for FieldTurf on an emergency basis (again at great expense) after a 2006 game that turned into a horrific and hazardous mud pit.

Here's a good article about it from 2016: Why the New England Patriots gave up on natural grass. Some notable quotes:

“If you have a competitive team, you want to give them a chance to play,” Belichick said this week, recalling the decision to change to FieldTurf. “You don’t want to go out there and slop around every week and play in a mud bowl. … Those are hard conditions for players to play on because it’s not consistent within the play, or it’s frozen on part of the field and it’s not frozen on the other part of the field.

“The amount of sunlight the field gets after August isn’t enough, because the stadium is tall,” Kraft said at the time. “So the grass doesn’t have a chance to recover after being used aggressively in April straight through January. No matter how good the system is underneath it, no one perfected a way to replace Mother Nature unless you go to an artificial surface.”

I don't know where this idea that Kraft is guarding his pile of riches like Smaug comes from. Or maybe I do.

 

[Sect140]

I don't know if there was a delay or not, but it seems to me that the new turf and crews should have been on hand and ready to begin installation the day after the last Foxboro World Cup game. If the stadium administrators did not plan ahead to begin replacement immediately, the current situation is inexcusable.

They put the turf down right after the World Cup, then testing determined that turf didn’t meet NFL standards and they need to replace the one they put in after the World Cup.

 

[TommyD4207]

There are very real problems maintaining real grass playing fields in winter climate conditions. The only good solution is putting a dome over the grass. That eliminates many true home field advantages.

You roll it out, put it under a dome, and roll it back in. There are natural grass domes now.

Nah. Again, the Patriots are valued at 9 billion dollars. This isn't the same thing as you trying to keep your lawn going in October.

 

[DarrylS]

Read where the players lobbied to keep the grass, but that was nixed by Mr. Kraft. Other players from other teams joined in as well.
So now we have a conundrum cause the artificial grass sucks.
Is this one of those Karma things?

Patriots have rare chance to start NFL trend that players have begged for

Patriots owner Robert Kraft has a big opportunity to make a significant change to Gillette Stadium that players have been asking for.

musketfire.com

 

[PATSNUTme]

In case anybody forgets, Gillette WAS built with a then state-of-the-art grass field, at great expense. It was swapped out for FieldTurf on an emergency basis (again at great expense) after a 2006 game that turned into a horrific and hazardous mud pit.

Here's a good article about it from 2016: Why the New England Patriots gave up on natural grass. Some notable quotes:




I don't know where this idea that Kraft is guarding his pile of riches like Smaug comes from. Or maybe I do.

You are correct. The natural grass that they had was great- until December.
It had to do with the amount of light from one EZ along with the up and down temperatures. The Jets playoff game was the final straw, it was a mess.
It was decided that natural grass could not work in that stadium. That's when the went with field turf.
There have been changes to the stadium since then but I'd hate to see the same problems start in December.

 

[patfanken]

Everywhere around the world in every climate can maintain a good surface if they are willing to spend enough, the issue isn't being able to maintain a surface in a tough climate it's the fact you can't do it while hosting a bunch of concerts and events.

That's the true reason for all the NFL surface issues around the league, they want to have a bunch of concerts during the season and the surface quality suffers because of it.

If every NFL team kept August-January concert free they could all have a pristine grass surface that would look like the white house lawn.

That's why a lot of the new builds have a system where the field can be rotated out on a roller type system so they can still have concerts without the field being affected by it even artificial turf suffers with the constant non football usage.

First, you ignore the fact that the Pats had a GREAT year injury-wise playing on that turf you so maligned. Second, you are very cavalier with the Kraft's money since you seem to want to force him to use his stadium just nine times a year during the regular season on a good year. The guy puts in hundreds of millions build and maintain (with ZERIO public money) to earn enough to make business sense. I thought you Scots are born with a keen business sense and yet YOU make no sense.

I know players would rather have grass. I would rather have grass, but reality is reality. Don't you think someone who is putting up $301MM to pay his players each year would want to protect that investment as much as he can by providing as safe a surface as possible.

We have one the best owners in sports in Bob Kraft and I am amazed that their STILL persists a group of our supposed fans that keep alive this myth that Kraft is "cheap". It's an embarrassment.

 

[XLIX]

Tough to tell how urgent the situation is but I wouldn't lose any sleep if they cancelled Thursday.

 

[ScottishPatriots]

First, you ignore the fact that the Pats had a GREAT year injury-wise playing on that turf you so maligned. Second, you are very cavalier with the Kraft's money since you seem to want to force him to use his stadium just nine times a year during the regular season on a good year. The guy puts in hundreds of millions build and maintain (with ZERIO public money) to earn enough to make business sense. I thought you Scots are born with a keen business sense and yet YOU make no sense.

I know players would rather have grass. I would rather have grass, but reality is reality. Don't you think someone who is putting up $301MM to pay his players each year would want to protect that investment as much as he can by providing as safe a surface as possible.

We have one the best owners in sports in Bob Kraft and I am amazed that their STILL persists a group of our supposed fans that keep alive this myth that Kraft is "cheap". It's an embarrassment.

There's plenty of terrible fields around the league with owners paying that money to their players, they fought the referees for every cent and would be willing to have more replacement referees if they didn't accept their deal.

So yes i think he along side many of them would be willing, The Patriots also had a decade where they were the lowest spending team in the league maybe a couple of 4 win seasons woke him up because it has been trending towards him spending more but i'll wait and see how the Gonzalez and Maye contract extensions go before i admit i was wrong and say he was only spending that because he had a coach who was frugal and he was winning anyway.

 

[Ross12]

The league screws over the team once again, the fans blame the owner instead once again, more at 11:00.

 

[borg]

The league screws over the team once again, the fans blame the owner instead once again, more at 11:00.

The Krafts installed a new turf that was non compliant with the stadium’s subsurface.
How exactly did the NFL screw over the team?
Bob and Jon Jon should have read the instruction manual.

 

[n1997y]

The league screws over the team once again, the fans blame the owner instead once again, more at 11:00.

Something new and different eh

 

[n1997y]

The Krafts installed a new turf that was non compliant with the stadium’s subsurface.
How exactly did the NFL screw over the team?
Bob and Jon Jon should have read the instruction manual.

The Krafts read the instructions and installed the new turf in accordance with best practice for how Gillette is constructed, e,g. for a crushed granite substrate. Gillette is constructed with a crushed granite substrate not poured concrete.

Reiss reports: “The artificial turf surface installed was vetted by the Patriots and the New England Revolution and passed all NFL and MLS field tests, per chief operating officer Jim Nolan. However, the field was deemed noncompliant by the NFL.”

So the turf as installed passed all the tests but the NFL deemed it non-compliant because their lab testing had been done using a different field construction.

The league needs to understand that every team stadium is not the same and accommodate the variations. Most stadiums are already built (Bills just finished theirs) so it’s not reasonable to expect them to change fundamentals like field substrate long after they’re built.

The league could have / should have tested the configuration as installed at Gillette. Without that testing they can’t say whether the Gillette installation might even have been superior to the installation over concrete. I bet the Krafts would even have paid for that testing, as it would be cheaper than replacing the entire installation.

So yes, it’s the league screwing the Krafts again.

My question is, as a fan of the team, why do you hate the team owners and favor the league over our team?

 

[TommyD4207]

The league screws over the team once again, the fans blame the owner instead once again, more at 11:00.

Nope. The Patriots could have very easily kept the grass field they had in place for the world cup.
Their fanatical need to keep artificial turf to save a few bucks is what got them here.

 

[TommyD4207]

My question is, as a fan of the team, why do you hate the team owners and favor the league over our team?

Because there was natural grass there as a field literally 3 weeks ago. Instead of investing in their own players safety (not to mention the safety of other players), they decided they just needed to have New Country Superstar Concerts without fixing the grass afterwards, and spending a few bucks to do it.

The league is being ******ed again, yes. Nobody's disagreeing with that. If they had kept the grass field, it wouldn't have come to that. Now the options are: Pay even more money to try to comply, and legitimately risk injury to their players as a result, because you wanted to save a few pennies from keeping the grass field, that LITERALLY WAS ALREADY IN PLACE.

 

[n1997y]

Because there was natural grass there as a field literally 3 weeks ago. Instead of investing in their own players safety (not to mention the safety of other players), they decided they just needed to have New Country Superstar Concerts without fixing the grass afterwards, and spending a few bucks to do it.

The league is being ******ed again, yes. Nobody's disagreeing with that. If they had kept the grass field, it wouldn't have come to that. Now the options are: Pay even more money to try to comply, and legitimately risk injury to their players as a result, because you wanted to save a few pennies from keeping the grass field, that LITERALLY WAS ALREADY IN PLACE.

Grass won’t be playable through the winter. By November or December it would be a disaster, literally.