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NRG Stadium's Hazardous Turf

How many players' careers have to be ruined before Bob McNair changes the playing surface. I called into the 790 post game show yesterday and asked ND Kalu to tell me the truth about the surface. He said that it looks even worse now than when he played.

McNair is really pissing me off with this ****. It is teetering close to criminal negligence for them to continue to put that crappy field out. I was livid at the game when I saw DeMeco get hurt. I saw with my own eyes that the turf caused the injury. Also, McNair not opening the roof yesterday when the weather was great is shameful. The Houston taxpayers paid for that roof and we should have the say on when it is opened.
 
I was at both the battle of the piney woods shsu-sfa game saturday and at the texans game on sunday. The field was already terrible before anyone stepped on the field. Shsu had more injuries on Saturday than it had seen all season and sfa had their fair share too. Looked visably bad then too, obvious seams, different colored patches, ect.

The college game wasnt to blame for the awful field, but it certainly didnt help. I thought we finally got astroturf for all non texans games. 18 hours is plenty of time to switch them out especially with the amount of resources the texans have.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
 
Someone might want to explain why the game on Saturday was not played on the Astroturf field which was procured specifically for high school and college games to avoid this problem................Maybe it's because it takes ~ 7 hours to remove the Astroturf and ~ 16 hours to install the grass palette field..........that's at least 23+ hours before the field will be ready to play on...........not enough time for a Saturday to Sunday game conversion, unless we play a Sunday night game.

This was all thought out by great minds indeed.:toropalm:
 
TexansFight said:
How many players' careers have to be ruined before Bob McNair changes the playing surface. I called into the 790 post game show yesterday and asked ND Kalu to tell me the truth about the surface. He said that it looks even worse now than when he played.

McNair is really pissing me off with this ****. It is teetering close to criminal negligence for them to continue to put that crappy field out. I was livid at the game when I saw DeMeco get hurt. I saw with my own eyes that the turf caused the injury. Also, McNair not opening the roof yesterday when the weather was great is shameful. The Houston taxpayers paid for that roof and we should have the say on when it is opened.
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Amen

End thread////
 
CloakNNNdagger said:
Someone might want to explain why the game on Saturday was not played on the Astroturf field which was procured specifically for high school and college games to avoid this problem................Maybe it's because it takes ~ 7 hours to remove the Astroturf and ~ 16 hours to install the grass palette field..........that's at least 23+ hours before the field will be ready to play on...........not enough time for a Saturday to Sunday game conversion, unless we play a Sunday night game.

This was all thought out by great minds indeed.:toropalm:
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Ah! you answered my question perfectly. Thanks.

This could have easily been solved by keeping the Astroturf installed through the Texans game. I'm pretty sure players prefer it over our grass anyway.
 
Field turf is a simple fix, honor DeMeco & protect athletes moving forward, suggest calling new surface Ryan's Field.
 
Showtime100 said:
Aside from the Houston CBS article, it looks like a little smoke in this csnphlly article could lead to fire.

The Texans organization brought it on themselves if this turns into the focal point of DeMeco's injury (and it will).

Good God. Philadelphia Eagle players b!tching about another team's playing surface.....how times have changed.
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A little more than four years ago, Ryans ruptured his left Achilles while playing for the Texans. The injury he suffered Sunday happened in the same way (noncontact) and at the same spot (near the 10-yard line in the north end) at NRG Stadium, according to Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin.

"Same spot," said Barwin, who was also Ryans' teammate for three seasons with the Texans. "Everything. It's really weird."

Ryans had just intercepted Ryan Fitzpatrick. The Texans quarterback attempted a pass to receiver DeAndre Hopkins, but defensive end Fletcher Cox tipped the ball at the line, and Ryans picked it out of the air. He took a step, and then another, and then crumbled to the ground and fumbled.

The grass field at indoor NRG Stadium is made up of panels, and you could see the creases in many areas. There was speculation that Ryans got his foot caught in one, but Barwin said: "DeMeco told me his [injury] didn't have to do with the crease."

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...yans_lost_for_season.html#aGkPGR9FQo5PCi3p.99
*****
I dunno, is there anything else about this panel construction that makes them more of a peril to play on than other surfaces besides the infamous creases ? Connor Barwin said that DeMeco told him it had nothing to do with the crease.
BTW, you may recall that Barwin himself suffered a season-ending injury at NRG (then Reliant), back in 2010, but that was the result of one Antonio Smith running onto/stepping on his ankle.
 
It's weird and kinda nasty that you can see the exact point his achilles tears in the slow motion of the play. I noticed it when they re-played it, so I rewound and watched again. The back of his heel to calf area kind of twitches and shifts. Hard to explain, but it was visable
 
I have no doubt that the Texans would change the surface on NRG field if they thought that it was responsible for player injuries. For crying out loud, McNair just committed a 100 mill to a single player, and that's serious money for even him.
People love to keep going on and on about the conspiracy that took out JFK even though it's been concluded for some time now that there was none.
In the same sense the discussion about the NRG field surface is more interesting when facts are ignored if a more interesting theory with an ulterior motive like greed is maybe available.
 
HOU-TEX said:
It's weird and kinda nasty that you can see the exact point his achilles tears in the slow motion of the play. I noticed it when they re-played it, so I rewound and watched again. The back of his heel to calf area kind of twitches and shifts. Hard to explain, but it was visable
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Cause or effect?
 
I sure didn't see the footing problems you'd expect from such a "horrible, threadbare" field yesterday. :kitten:
 
IDEXAN said:
I have no doubt that the Texans would change the surface on NRG field if they thought that it was responsible for player injuries. For crying out loud, McNair just committed a 100 mill to a single player, and that's serious money for even him.
People love to keep going on and on about the conspiracy that took out JFK even though it's been concluded for some time now that there was none.
In the same sense the discussion about the NRG field surface is more interesting when facts are ignored if a more interesting theory with an ulterior motive like greed is maybe available.
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You are extremely naive if you believe what you wrote. Remember McNair is stubborn and extremely cheap. He had Houston taxpayers pay for the new scoreboards and replay screens. He has had this same garbage field for over 12 years despite near unanimous agreement around the league that it is one of the worst fields in the NFL. NRG also doesn't have in-stadium WiFi which is available in virtually every other stadium in the NFL. Lack of cell phone signal in that stadium has been a problem for years and he hasn't done a damn thing about it. Cheap Bob McNair is expecting us taxpayers to fork over money for it yet that greedy SOB doesn't open the roof that WE PAID FOR when every fan I met was wanting it open. McNair is a petty, small-minded fool and who knows what stupid reason he has for keeping his shitty field. He knows it's a problem and hasn't done **** to fix it. This is par for the course for Bob and you should wake up and realize it.
 
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Of all the things that suck about the Texans, this shitty field issue pisses me off the most. Ineptitude as shown by Rick Smith is maddening and I wanted him fired after 2010. The callous disregard for the health and safety of players playing on a substandard field is unconscionable in my opinion. Everyone talks about how McNair is so classy. Bullshit, a person with an ounce of true class and concern for others wouldn't allow players to play on the garbage field we have. I am still livid and was shaking in anger when I saw DeMeco crumple up on the field on a non-contact injury. I saw him get injured with my own eyes and knew that it was a severe injury caused by our atrocious field. This poor guy's career has been jeopardized by an out of touch jackass that owns the Texans. Shame on McNair.
 
TexansFight said:
You are blind if you don't see the issues. I have C'ND on my side and he is a respected physician. Your opinion is bunk.
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To my knowledge, he hasn't had any comment on yesterday's game specifically.

I'm not blind and I'm 12 rows from the field. I've seen bad in the past, this wasn't it.
 
TexansFight said:
You are extremely naive if you believe what you wrote. Remember McNair is stubborn and extremely cheap. He had Houston taxpayers pay for the new scoreboards and replay screens. He has had this same garbage field for over 12 years despite near unanimous agreement around the league that it is one of the worst fields in the NFL. NRG also doesn't have in-stadium WiFi which is available in virtually every other stadium in the NFL. Lack of cell phone signal in that stadium has been a problem for years and he hasn't done a damn thing about it. Cheap Bob McNair is expecting us taxpayers to fork over money for it yet that greedy SOB doesn't open the roof that WE PAID FOR when every fan I met was wanting it open. McNair is a petty, small-minded fool and who knows what stupid reason he has for keeping his shitty field. He knows it's a problem and hasn't done **** to fix it. This par for the course for Bob and you should wake up and realize it.
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My man you are making my point for me here which is that McNair is far too astute of a businessman to make a 9 figure investment in a single player and then avoid investing what would surely be a much smaller amount to make his playing field safer for that player and his teammates. And securing taxpayer assistance to help him defray the costs of his stadium improvements like the new scoreboard is just another example of McNair being a shrewd businessman.
 
There is a lot of information in this thread about the field. Perhaps some of y'all should take the time to read the entire thing because it would help educate you about various aspects of the field, as well as potential solutions. Otherwise, you are ranting about stuff we covered earlier in this thread without respecting the on-going conversation that this thread represents.

As far as Bob McNair being a "petty, small-minded fool", perhaps he should just take his crappy ass cheap team to another city, amirite? :thinking: [/sarcasm]
 
There's really no point in going at one another over this anymore. It will be changed when the Texans see fit to change it (or not) and that's really all there is to it. I hate to see us all arguing over something like this.

They'll make a change when they think it's needed and not before. What we have to say about it will not factor into the decision so why get all wound up about it?

Go Texans!
 
TexansFight said:
I was livid at the game when I saw DeMeco get hurt. I saw with my own eyes that the turf caused the injury.
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Well I guess you know better than the players involved.

IDEXAN said:
The grass field at indoor NRG Stadium is made up of panels, and you could see the creases in many areas. There was speculation that Ryans got his foot caught in one, but Barwin said: "DeMeco told me his [injury] didn't have to do with the crease."
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Geez, this is becoming a witch hunt.
 
IDEXAN said:
My man you are making my point for me here which is that McNair is far too astute of a businessman to make a 9 figure investment in a single player and then avoid investing what would surely be a much smaller amount to make his playing field safer for that player and his teammates. And securing taxpayer assistance to help him defray the costs of his stadium improvements like the new scoreboard is just another example of McNair being a shrewd businessman.
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Your assumptions don't match the track record of Bob McNair. He lets problems fester for years before doing anything abou it. Look at how long he kept Kubiak and he still hasn't fired Rick Smith despite having 2 atrocious drafts in a row. The evidence is on my side not yours. You are just engaging in wishful thinking.
 
They should at lease check out the turf to make sure all it's safe to play on in the future so that no one else gets hurt.
 
infantrycak said:
Well I guess you know better than the players involved.



Geez, this is becoming a witch hunt.
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There are creases and inconsistencies all over that damn field. It has caused numerous injuries. Talk to some players like I have and get a clue before making smart ass comments. Jason Kelce said the field is dangerous
 
TexansFight said:
There are creases and inconsistencies all over that damn field. It has caused numerous injuries. Talk to some players like I have and get a clue before making smart ass comments.
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Ah, now the claim of personal conversations with players who come out to you but not the press.

Sure they do, chicken little.

As DB said, trying taking a prozac and reading a little more so you don't make ignorant statements like this:

He has had this same garbage field for over 12 years despite near unanimous agreement around the league that it is one of the worst fields in the NFL.
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infantrycak said:
Ah, now the claim of personal conversations with players who come out to you but not the press.

Sure they do, chicken little.

As DB said, trying taking a prozac and reading a little more so you don't make ignorant statements like this:
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Ad hominem attacks are a sign of a person who has nothing to say. You are a moderator and engage in this type of behavior, shame on you. For the record, yes I have had conversations in person with former players about this field. Just right now on 610 they have had several clips of players saying the field sucks. It is embarrassing and a joke for an organization that thinks its first class to have a field like this.
 
TexansFight said:
I am reporting you to the owner of this board for your ridiculous behavior.
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not_sure_if_serious.jpg
 
This should be talked, about more tell the owner the nrg people that do the field and lets, make some change happen if they have to re design the stadium then they have to redesign it but we the tax payers will have to pay for it lol. I would like to see the tray system the Cardinals use

But if he didn't know yet I'm sure Bob knows now I, wonder if he will, do anything now that u can, add Jackson foster and demeco to dat ever growing list
 
Someone just called into CP on 790 making some of the same points in this thread almost quoting them. Was that someone here?
 
I am rewatching the game in HD on my 60" TV and I can specifically see Foster step in a "crack" between two of the grass pallets and then he goes down. Indisputable evidence that the field is causing injuries. It is on his 3th or 4th step with his right leg. As soon as he puts his right foot in the crack, he goes down. It's really obvious.... Is anyone here skilled enough to post a video of what I am talking about? The play is at 2:40 left in the third quarter.

Someone here should make a collection of video clips of all of these "non-contact" injuries in HD that we can see if the cracks really are causing the injuries. I can pretty much see all of the cracks in the field on my TV. We should do a collective analysis of all the injuries that way they can't keep being cheap by ignoring the problem.

I'd do it but I'm sure it'd be easier for some others here.
 
I like the idea of rolling the field out. I understand a 160 foot span along the end zone would be too big. But, how about an 80 foot span? Having one seam down the middle of the field would be a hell of a lot better than having hundreds of ridiculous pallet seams. It would be easy for the grounds crew to only need to do ONE seam down the middle of the field.


Just need to take out about half of one end zone:

Reliantstadium.jpg


Even if the grounds crew won't get it perfect, the players would understand that it's there.

One seam is a hell of a lot better than hundreds.

I'm tired of watching our players go down on all these non-contact injuries.
 
You guys really need to get off the mangos. Here's a list of some of the players lost to significant knee or achilles injuries that weren't mauled by the NRG field.

Darnell Dockett, Peter Konz, Joe Hawley, Marquis Spruill, Morgan Cox, Sean Weatherspoon, Kapron Lewis, Brent Urban, Aaron Ross, Sean Lee, Robert Mathis, Joe McKnight, Knowshon Moreno, Victor Cruz, Usama Young, Kory Sheets, Travis Long, Doug Legursky, Kwame Geathers, Kendall Hunter, Anthony McCoy, Jake Long, Sam Bradford, Bernard Pollard, and Chris Neild.

And ALL of those injuries happened on natural grass surfaces. Not to mention RG3's ankle injury on a natural grass field.

On the artificial stuff:

Isaiah Pead, LaMarr Houston, Morris Claiburne, Nick Fairley, Stephen Tulloch, Bill Bentley, Jerod Mayo, Stevan Ridley, Glenn Foster, Jarius Byrd, Brian Williams, and Dee Milliner, just to name a few.

Guess what? Injuries happen any where on any field. Hell, DeAngelo Hall ripped his achilles going out for pizza.

Get off of this pallet system being the devil BS.
 
they need to just switch to turf.


the announcer said before game that they haven't opened the roof all season. what's the point?



if it's the heat? well **** it. maybe we should just play in the heat. might give us an advantage for once.
 
infantrycak said:
Ah, now the claim of personal conversations with players who come out to you but not the press.

Sure they do, chicken little.

As DB said, trying taking a prozac and reading a little more so you don't make ignorant statements like this:
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You know, it is possible that some of us have had personal interactions with Texans players, and that those players have said things that they would never reveal to the press. I've had a Texans player say things to me that I know he's never said to the public.
 
houstonspartan said:
You know, it is possible that some of us have had personal interactions with Texans players, and that those players have said things that they would never reveal to the press. I've had a Texans player say things to me that I know he's never said to the public.
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I don't think all claims of private knowledge are fake.
 
McCoy says Texans’ field is “probably the worst” he’s ever played on


The field at NRG Stadium has absorbed plenty of criticism in recent weeks. The latest team to visit Houston has echoed those concerns.

Appearing on Monday’s PFT Live, Eagles running back LeSean McCoy called it “probably the worst field I ever played on.”

“Yeah, that field is terrible, bad, bad,” McCoy said.

What makes it so bad?

“There’s so many holes, potholes in it, rocky,” McCoy said. “It’s like they measured the squares out and put them in piece by piece. There’s so many holes, it’s like this can’t be a real NFL field. The stadium’s actually nice, but the field is so bad.”

He’s referring to the system of grass trays that are pieced together, resulting in seams and gaps between the trays.

“You’ve got to make sure the field condition is great for the players, because we’re the guys out there running, putting our life on the line, playing hard,” McCoy said. “I think the least they could do is have the field in better shape so a guy could just go out there and run and be safe.”
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:ouch:
 
what can they do I don't think they can slide in one giant tray since they seem to like the tray Idea but maybe long pieces IDK


maybe they should just open dat rook and put in that natural grassand if tey have to replace it every week or other week so be it
 
ObsiWan said:
Sorry, but he totally lost me with that "putting our life on the line" crack.
Police officers, fire dept. folks, armed services folks... THEY put their lives on the line.
He makes big bucks playing a damned game.
He ought to get over himself.
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That phrase also sort of caught my eye as a far out statement. But he's not a Harvard graduate. He probably meant to say "putting your BODY on the line."
 
Double Barrel said:
What did CP have to say about things?
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I think the Texans are teetering close to the line of criminal negligence with the abortion of a field they have. CP didn't think it rose to that level. He said players get hurt all the time but did agree that the field looked worse than usual and that it is a bad playing surface.
 
I think that the Texans should step back from everything and try to look at their problem differently. Buying the carpet they did to roll out over concrete was a bad idea (I believe) and this problem calls for some creative, out of the box type thinking.

Pallets. That's the system we are tied to. There's not going to be any full-time grass field grown in there. They're not going to go to a conventional artificial surface over concrete. Maybe they should be looking at redesigning/rethinking the trays. How deep are they? Can they be made deeper? What is their composition? How do they fit together and is there a way to lock them together tighter?

Is a tray-based artificial surface possible? Could one be designed that had under the turf material that closer approximated dirt?

This thing we're doing is catching more and more bad attention as time goes by. Clearly it's not working as well as the Texans expected so the obvious thing to do is go to work on the problem and reinvent the field.
 
houstonspartan said:
You know, it is possible that some of us have had personal interactions with Texans players, and that those players have said things that they would never reveal to the press. I've had a Texans player say things to me that I know he's never said to the public.
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As I mentioned in this thread back in September, my son has played on that field when the stadium started hosting the annual Battle of Piney Woods (SFA vs. SHSU). He said the grass itself is nice, but there are some spots that they learned to avoid during pre-game walk-throughts.

On a side note, they just played that game last weekend. My son has graduated, but we were at the practice facility for a scouting event (Texans were hosting a youth event). JJ Moses was there as a Texans ambassador, and I asked him about the field. He knew that he had to be careful with his answer because of his employer, but he said EVERY field in the NFL has weak spots. Some you know because the field stays the same, but one like the Texans, it is game to game. He said some games it would be 'near perfect' with the seams aligned, while other games there were places you learned to avoid.

Norg said:
what can they do I don't think they can slide in one giant tray since they seem to like the tray Idea but maybe long pieces IDK

maybe they should just open dat rook and put in that natural grassand if tey have to replace it every week or other week so be it
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As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I think the best option would be to just grow a field in the stadium for 6 months and only host football game events during that period. During the other six months, rodeo, monster truck, Disney Ice, circus, whatever, could be accommodated by removing the field.

Have the best of both worlds with natural grass, but get rid of the pallet system and just grow a field for football season. Problems solved.

ObsiWan said:
Sorry, but he totally lost me with that "putting our life on the line" crack.
Police officers, fire dept. folks, armed services folks... THEY put their lives on the line.
He makes big bucks playing a damned game.
He ought to get over himself.
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I feel the same way when players say that they are "going to war" or call themselves warriors. Give me a break. It's a freakin' game. I respect that it's a contact sport, but it's not war.

TexansFight said:
I think the Texans are teetering close to the line of criminal negligence with the abortion of a field they have. CP didn't think it rose to that level. He said players get hurt all the time but did agree that the field looked worse than usual and that it is a bad playing surface.
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Thanks for the reply. I figured CP would be pragmatic about it.

Not sure about criminal negligence, but I do think they could find a more practical solution like I mentioned above instead of allowing profit motives to drive hosting multiple events during football season. They are trying to compromise with a pallet system that causes these problems, but they need to put the Houston Texans and their assets (ie. PLAYERS) first and foremost during the season.
 
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