With Safety in Mind, NFL Mandates New Playing Surfaces for All Stadiums by 2028

Each NFL stadium will have to install a new playing surface by the start of the 2028 season to meet standards set through lab and field testing.

NFL field director Nick Pappas detailed the plans for the program on Thursday that will provide each team "a library of approved and accredited NFL fields" before the start of next season. Teams will then have two years to install the new approved playing surfaces, whether they are grass, synthetic or a hybrid.

Pappas said the fields will have undergone extensive testing and been approved by a joint committee with the NFLPA. He compared to the testing that has led to new standards for helmets.

"It’s sort of a red, yellow, green effect, where we’re obviously trying to phase out fields that we have determined to be less ideal than newer fields coming into the industry," he said. "This is a big step for us. This is something that I think has been a great outcome from the Joint Service Committee of the work, the deployment and development of devices determining the appropriate metrics, and ultimately providing us with a way to substantiate the quality of fields more so than we ever have in the past."

Pappas said fields have been tested in labs and on site using two main tools with one called the BEAST that is a traction testing device that replicates the movements of an NFL player and another called the STRIKE Impact Tester that helps determine the firmness of each field.

The goal of the league is to find fields that are as consistent as possible across all 30 NFL stadiums, as well as at each stadium throughout the season. Pappas said the "key pillars" for a field are optimized playability, reducing injury risk and player feedback.

The NFL has no plans to require natural grass