A brief history of the MetLife Stadium being blamed for so many NFL injuries

Is it all the turf’s fault?

Is there something wrong with the MetLife Stadium turf?

The San Francisco 49ers claimed there were problems when they played back-to-back games in New Jersey against the Jets and Giants and came away with a long list of injured players.

But the NFL, per reports, had a league inspector check out the claims and found the playing surface was fine.

On Thursday, it was a Jets player, Lawrence Cager, who was injured, and there were many people who wondered if the incident — while he was running a route, he pulled up and grabbed at his leg as his foot scraped the turf — had anything to do with the surface in East Rutherford.

Let’s go back and look at the timeline:

Sept 20: The 49ers lose a bunch of key players to injury

The list was long after a Niners win over the Jets in Week 2: Nick Bosa, Solomon Thomas, Jimmy Garoppolo, Raheem Mostert and Tevin Coleman were all hurt. That led to defensive end Arik Armstead tweeting this:

Head coach Kyle Shanahan added this (via the New York Daily News):

“I know our players talked about it the entire game. Just how sticky the turf was. That was the first time people played on it, I think. It was something our guys were concerned about right away. And the results definitely made that a lot stronger. Unfortunately, it’s a place we got to go back to next week.”

The NFL said the turf had been inspected before the Giants played the Pittsbugh Steelers and it was approved. And Giants players and coaches said it was fine. Via Giants Wire:

“Our guys have been on that turf during camp, the stadium was kind of our home for that month or so,” Giants head coach Joe Judge told reporters on Monday. “We had our players on that turf every day for some sort of walkthrough, competitive practice, and then leading up to the game last week. Not a single player said anything negative to me at all, about any of our facilities, and specifically the turf.”

Sept 21: The Niners contact the NFL with their Week 3 game at MetLife Stadium against the Giants approaching

Sept 24: The turf passes an inspection

From an NFL statement:

“Yesterday, representatives from the NFL, NFLPA, MetLife Stadium, the Giants and Jets, Field Turf and the independent field inspector conducted an additional review of the field surface at MetLife Stadium. The group again verified that the field meets all applicable standards and protocols for NFL field surfaces.”

Sept 27: Jordan Reed is injured in the 49ers’ win

Was it due to the turf?

Sept 30: NFLPA president JC Tretter — also a Browns enter — called for all NFL teams to switch to natural grass

From ESPN.com:

Tretter, the starting center for the Cleveland Browns, wrote in a newsletter that players have a 28% higher rate of noncontact lower extremity injuries when playing on artificial turf as compared to grass. Tretter, citing NFL injury data collected from 2012 to 2018, added that those rates are even higher for noncontact knee injuries (32%) and noncontact foot and ankle injuries (69%) on turf as compared to grass.

It’s probably not a coincidence that this came up when it did.

Oct 1: A Lawrence Cager injury leads to Raheem Mostert calling out the NFL

This didn’t look good at all:

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