DolfanDonny
Starter
During our heyday in the Orange Bowl, we had a non-grass field. In that vain, there was an inherent advantage with the heat eminating from the playing surface (which you know that field gave off) when teams came to South Florida. Someone mentioned earlier (paraphrasing) that "football was meant to be played on grass." According to whom?
I believe upwards of 21 teams/stadiums have FieldTurf installed...more than half the league. There was SO MUCH HYPE about our renovated stadium having a premier playing surface using a technology that would rival any other venue with a grass surface. And if it can't be grown in South Florida with ideal weather, then where? All we read about nowadays is how the turf has to replaced ROUTINELY (never giving it a chance to take root), either wholesale (which makes GREAT economic sense - NOT!) or certain patches on the field which is not only lame from the way it looks, to the way it plays (which is TOTALLY DANGEROUS from a players' perspective, not knowing what kind of surface you'll be on, or moving from one patched area to another, depending where one is on the field). Having two games (college and pro) in 24 hours on a surface like this SUCKS. I'm sure the non-football events like concerts, etc (which will be more prevalent to get year-round use of the newly-renovated stadium) contribute to this as well since there would be multiple configuration changes to the floor of the bowl to accomodate. If FieldTurf were installed, that would all go away.
There's no specific body of evidence that players, with the new and improving FieldTurf techonology, are any more susecpible to injury on that surface vs. grass. In fact, there are multiple references to surfaces like Lucas Oil Stadium (voted best surface in the NFL) being the benchmark for the rest of the league. Couple that with their stadium being used annually for the Combine, where teams are evaluating players at all levels - no better place to do that, then on the best field in the league.
SO - let's petition Mr. Ross once and for all to install FieldTurf so ALL the above (and more) can be addressed, and we never have to worry about the playing surface again.
I'm sure there's more I can say, but that's all I can think of for right now.
~DD
I believe upwards of 21 teams/stadiums have FieldTurf installed...more than half the league. There was SO MUCH HYPE about our renovated stadium having a premier playing surface using a technology that would rival any other venue with a grass surface. And if it can't be grown in South Florida with ideal weather, then where? All we read about nowadays is how the turf has to replaced ROUTINELY (never giving it a chance to take root), either wholesale (which makes GREAT economic sense - NOT!) or certain patches on the field which is not only lame from the way it looks, to the way it plays (which is TOTALLY DANGEROUS from a players' perspective, not knowing what kind of surface you'll be on, or moving from one patched area to another, depending where one is on the field). Having two games (college and pro) in 24 hours on a surface like this SUCKS. I'm sure the non-football events like concerts, etc (which will be more prevalent to get year-round use of the newly-renovated stadium) contribute to this as well since there would be multiple configuration changes to the floor of the bowl to accomodate. If FieldTurf were installed, that would all go away.
There's no specific body of evidence that players, with the new and improving FieldTurf techonology, are any more susecpible to injury on that surface vs. grass. In fact, there are multiple references to surfaces like Lucas Oil Stadium (voted best surface in the NFL) being the benchmark for the rest of the league. Couple that with their stadium being used annually for the Combine, where teams are evaluating players at all levels - no better place to do that, then on the best field in the league.
SO - let's petition Mr. Ross once and for all to install FieldTurf so ALL the above (and more) can be addressed, and we never have to worry about the playing surface again.
I'm sure there's more I can say, but that's all I can think of for right now.
~DD