The NFL will do extra testing on the NY Giants’ new turf at Metlife Stadium this week after the 49ers suffered multiple key injuries on Sunday.
The NY Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t seem to have a problem playing on the new turf installed over the Summer at Metlife Stadium in Week 1, but the San Fransisco 49ers had several players go down with catastrophic injuries in their showdown with the Jets in Week 2.
This has prompted the NFL and the player’s union to launch an extra internal investigation into the field conditions ahead of Sunday’s contest between the NY Giants and the 49ers as San Fransisco will be playing back-to-back games at Metlife.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan is none too pleased with this, and he has every reason not to be after he watched five of his most important players go down with serious injuries.
Shanahan didn’t mince words when discussing why he felt these injuries went down, pointing directly to the newly-installed turf as the main component.
“Unfortunately, this place we need to go back to next week,” Shanahan said,” Via Ninernoise.com.
It’s hard to blame Shanahan for being so upset as he lost his two best pass rushers – and likely overall defensive players – in 2019 Defensive Rookie of the Year Nick Bosa and former first-round pick Solomon Thomas.
In addition, the 49ers saw starting running back Raheem Mostert – who has been setting the league on fire this season with 258 total yards (148 rushing, 110 receiving) on a 6.4 yards-per-carry average while scoring two TD’s of 80 yards or more – to a knee injury in addition to backup tailback Tevin Coleman to a knee injury, as well.
To top it all off, starting QB Jimmy Garoppolo went down with an ankle injury — if you’re counting that makes five lower-body injuries.
The NFL reportedly inspected the turf over 20 times before the season started and inspects the field conditions at every stadium 72 hours before each game is played. So, this review by the NFL and the NFLPA is of the extra variety and you can bet they will be looking hard into what is going on.
The league will also be taking a frame-by-frame look into all of the injuries that took place at Metlife Stadium on Sunday in an attempt to determine if the field conditions did in fact play a factor.
Joe Judge sick of answering questions about it already
It’s no surprise that NY Giants head coach Joe Judge wasn’t interested in answering questions about the Metlife Stadium controversy as he has prided himself as a ‘no excuses’ guy that doesn’t like to spend time worrying about things he can’t control.
When asked about it by the NY Daily News, Judge bluntly said, “I’ve had no conversations with the NFL on the field, period,” Judge said. “I’ll let them take care of that. We’ve been fine with it.”
The NY Giants can ill-afford to lose any more key players after superstar running back Saquon Barkley went down with a torn ACL this past weekend, as the team had already lost a pair of important players during training camp at the Metlife facilities.
Still, it’s something worth keeping an eye on moving forward.