NFL needs to 'seriously' look into grass-turf debate

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The coach and safety of the Seattle Seahawks said on Wednesday that they would like to see a reexamination of whether natural grass should be used in stadiums in the National Football League.

The conversation about the safety of playing on artificial turf versus natural grass has been raised again after two players were injured in a game.

The stadium has an artificial surface.

"I think we definitely need to look at this really seriously in the off-season again," he said. It has been discussed before. We have to do what's right and we have to do what's safe for the players. I'd hit the drum for that.

An artificial surface is used in 14 of the 30 stadiums in the National Football League. The president of the National Football League Players Association called for grass fields to be used to reduce the risk of injury to players. According to data from the National Football League, artificial turf has a higher rate of non-contact lower limb injuries than grass.

There are numbers and studies. You have to figure out who pays for the study. We need to figure out a lot of things here. We have to do the right thing, but we need to keep looking at it because it feels like a lot of guys are going down when they're not touching anyone. We're going to see. We need to see if the turfs are better than they used to be.

Jackson tore the patellar tendon in his right knee on Sunday and will not be able to play the rest of the season. A less severe injury to his left knee will not require surgery. He wasn't able to take part in the afternoon practice because he was feeling a little better, but he was at the morning walk- through. The status of Metcalf for Sunday's game is unknown.

The San Francisco 49ers complained about the artificial turf at the stadium after quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and defensive end Nick Bosa were injured in the game.

The injuries and the ones that happened Sunday at SoFi were cited by Diggs as reasons for his dislike for artificial turf.

He asked why can't we have natural grass everywhere. In San Francisco, it's grass and you just go play. We want to see what we can do to make it better.

The grass is "so much better" than the grass at State Farm Stadium, where he broke his fibula last season. The turf at SoFi's is slick, but a little more sticky than other stadiums. He said his foot got stuck in the turf on a missed tackle in a home game against the Arizona Cards.

At the end of the day, we have to do what's best for this billion-dollar industry and I think the players are a big part of that. Maybe we can get some ideas from the players.