NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said the players' union is looking into the certification of fields around the NFL to ensure the safety of the surfaces.
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The topic moved to the forefront when the Washington Redskins hosted the Seattle Seahawks in a wild-card game on chewed up sod. Some wonder if that played a part in quarterback Robert Griffin III's knee giving out.
Smith said the union will ask for the certification of every field at the end of the regular season and occasionally the "manner in which fields are certified."
"We look at it as a workplace safety issue," Smith said earlier this week on WTEM-AM, via SportsInterviews.com. "In the same way that somebody who works at a department store or somebody who works at a coal mine considers that mine or that floor or that factory their workplace, the field on game day is the workplace where our players work. If they are in a scenario where that workplace is not as safe as it could be, I can promise you that this union and this leader of players is gonna weigh in and we will take whatever steps we think are appropriate in order to ensure that the National Football League is expending the resources to keep the workplace as safe as possible."
It really is ridiculous that this still is an issue in NFL stadiums with the amount of money the league brings in. This has been a long-time problem with the Bears' Soldier Field, where the city of Chicago runs the stadium.
I understand that some teams want to continue to play on natural grass. But if that's the choice, the NFL has to ensure those playing surfaces are high quality and needs to be prepared to enforce penalties if not.
Follow Kareem Copeland on Twitter @kareemcopeland.
