Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers indicated this week that the turf at Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium is to blame for a lingering calf injury that limited him during playoffs.
On his radio show on ESPN Milwaukee, Rodgers stated his concerns about the stadium turf that he also blamed for a prior shoulder injury.
The calf was, in my opinion, due to the poor surface in Tampa. Tampa is where I hurt my shoulder as well, back in 2008, and I think that there needs to be looked at some more uniformity as far as the field conditions.
I think there’s a couple of surfaces that are more likely to create injury than prevent injury. There’s some incredible surfaces in the NFL. There’s some ones that I think need to be looked at. Tampa is one of them because of the amount of play, I think, that happens there.
When you put down so much sod and it’s very uneven and soft, I think it can lend to more injuries. I’ve played there three times and been hurt there, in my opinion directly related to the field, twice.
Rodgers’ claim should be taken seriously, especially considering it comes from one of the elite quarterbacks in the NFL. Regarding the field at Raymond James Stadium, the Tampa Sports Authority, who manages the stadium, released this comment about the field to NFL Media on Friday.
The field quality tests conducted prior to and following the Tampa Bay Buccaneers/Green Bay Packers game on December 21, 2014 as required by the NFL, indicated that the Raymond James Stadium field was well within compliance with the NFL Field Guidelines. These same tests were conducted at every 2014 Buccaneer home game at Raymond James Stadium, and all were well within compliance with the NFL Field Guidelines.
Thankfully for Rodgers, he managed to play through his injury and lead his team to the conference conference game. As for the questionable quality of the turf at Raymond James Stadium, perhaps other quarterbacks or players should come forth if they’ve ever experienced any noticeable shifts in the allegedly uneven sod.
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