Arguments Against Grass Fields in the NFL
People tend to believe that artificial turf fields are better surfaces to play on because they look nice. Great, they look nice and you think you look good, you play good, right? Well all that doesn’t matter when you take one cut on the turf surface and your knee buckles and you’re down on the turf crying for the trainer.
The biggest refutation to my hypothesis of grass fields being safer than turf fields is of course that grass fields are more dangerous. This seems obvious to a lot of people grass fields are choppy and unkempt. Well this isn’t the case for NFL stadiums. They literally hire people to keep the field in great playing conditions.
Opposers will also say that there is just too much maintenance into it. In order to keep fields polished and playable you hire a grounds crew to take care of it throughout the weather conditions and the toll of an NFL season. Baseball has all grass fields besides a couple and they are taken care of daily. Also, baseball field grass is changed and replaced a lot so that it is nicely kept and there is not a lot of patchy holes in the grass which can cause injury. With field turf you have to worry about maintenance as well and there is always a grey area on when you should replace the turf because even with turf you have to fix the patchy spots because they get worn down.
In an article written about the Houston Texans. Texans cornerback D.J. Swearinger talked about the awful field conditions at NRG stadium. They have turf square panels that get put in for every game. They essentially have seams in them as would Astroturf and everyone knows how awful Astroturf was to play on. Swearinger says in the article, “We actually said that the day before (the injury). If somebody was running right here and (they) plant, their ACL or MCL is gone just because of how deep the holes are.” Swearinger is referring to an injury that happened to top pick Jadeveon Clowney. Clowney was running for a tackle and got his leg caught in a seam and twisted his knee the wrong way and tore his meniscus.
People may also say that grass can get real cold in areas like Minnesota and Green Bay. Yes, this is true, and it is almost like you are playing on bricks but in Minnesota they just installed nice turf and first game of the year top pick Dalvin Cook tears his ACL cutting non contact on the turf. Injuries like this are popping up everywhere. There is no reason why you cannot sport some nice Bermuda grass is a dome stadium. It doesn’t make you cooler to have turf in your billion dollar dome, what matters is player safety. Players all over the league past and present have questioned player safety with concussions. Knee injuries are the second most occurring injury in the NFL and they require surgery and months of rehab, the time to speak up is now.
Rowan Counterintuitive 
Your instincts are correct, DoubleA. You’re identifying the attitudes of many readers and refuting them with examples. For a blog post argument, both approaches would suffice. So you’re on your way to an academic argument. Now you need to reinforce both positions with the best academic sources you can find.
Here’s the rationale. You’re eventually going to prevail in your argument by finding strong statistical evidence that turf is dangerous, and that grass is safer. To do so, you’ll have to fight against “common knowledge” that your readers bring to the article you publish. You identify that commonsense approach in your first paragraph. But convincing the common, uninformed reader is not the real objective of an academic essay. You need to convince informed readers, who have access to the best possible evidence of their own, that your argument is better. Your pair of threes might beat the slop your uniformed reader has in her hand. But at the big table, you need a flush to beat the full house your opponent is hiding.
So, you have to assume that every reader has a strong hand. And for that, you need to KNOW HER CARDS. Find the best cards your opponent could have and beat them. For that enterprise, “grass fields look choppy and unkempt” doesn’t suffice.
You might eventually have to conclude, based on an objective analysis of all the best evidence, that turf fields are the safest possible surface FOR THE NFL but not for high school stadiums. If that’s the case, then make that case. It’s highly possible that no high school can afford to maintain grass in the condition needed to optimize its safety. In fact, you could make the argument that high schools justify the cost of new artificial turf fields BECAUSE THEY CAN’T AFFORD to maintain real grass to its safest conditions.
But whatever the real facts indicate, you need to command them. The anecdote about Jadeveon Clowney is useful as an illustration, but it’s not proof. Find the proof, then cite the anecdote to help your readers visualize the impact of the evidence.
Is that helpful or just annoying? Do you need help finding sources? I’m pretty helpful in that regard. Just shout out if you want guidance.
LikeLike
Yes professor this is helpful. Thank you and I hope to accomplish these in my rewrite.
LikeLike
I wish to add to this paragraph more refutation examples in the rewrite:
The biggest refutation to my hypothesis of grass fields being safer than turf fields is of course that grass fields are more dangerous. This seems obvious to a lot of people grass fields are choppy and unkempt. Well this isn’t the case for NFL stadiums. They literally hire people to keep the field in great playing conditions.
LikeLike
Thanks, DoubleA. I’ve noted your reply and copied your paragraph.
LikeLike