Turf debacle in New England prompts FieldTurf victory lap
· Yahoo Sports
The Patriots have been scrambling to remove their post-World Cup turf field and to replace it with a new one. Given the ongoing real grass vs. fake grass debate, the notion that a team had to quickly remove and replace a "noncompliant" artificial surface seems like a fairly big deal.
Here's what happened.
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The Patriots (and the Revolution of the MLS) decided to switch from FieldTurf to Hellas as the provider of the playing surface at Gillette Stadium after the World Cup.
As FieldTurf describes the situation, the Hellas field was not an NFL-approved product. And it wasn't, given the absence of the shock-absorbing "e-layer," which is shorthand for "elastic layer." After the Revolution games played on the surface since the World Cup, the Hellas surface had to go — and it was replaced by a FieldTurf product that complies with the NFL and NFL Players Association standards.
The process of removing the Hellas field began on Sunday, the day after the most recent Revolution game. FieldTurf will get the field installed by Thursday, when the Patriots host the Colts in their mutual preseason opener.
And so FieldTurf is doing a victory lap regarding the fact that a competitor failed to deliver an NFL-compliant product. FieldTurf is also sensitive to the reality that their brand has in some circles become synonymous with artificial playing surfaces generally; obviously, they don't want the general public to think that the fake-grass fiasco was a FieldTurf fudge-up.
The problem, we're told, was that Hellas made an executive decision to install its product without the e-layer. Hellas believed that, given the surface below the turf, the installation of an e-layer would have made the field too springy. The problem is that the e-layer is a non-negotiable requirement for artificial turf NFL fields.
The Patriots realized while the Hellas field was being installed that there was no E-layer, and that the NFL wouldn't give them a dispensation on that requirement. They used the Hellas field for the three games played there by the Revolution after the World Cup, with a plan to rip out the Hellas field as of Sunday and to reinstall a FieldTurf surface before football season starts.
For these reasons, it's unlikely that the new field will fail to secure the appropriate approvals to proceed with a preseason game on Thursday night. And the folks at Hellas have learned an important lesson when it comes to installing NFL fields: The E-layer is mandatory, regardless of whether it's subjectively believed to be not necessary.