Green Bay Packers running back, Josh Jacobs was limited to just 22% of offensive snaps after suffering a knee injury mid way through week 11 against the New York Giants.
Jacobs was not the first – and sadly will likely be far from the last person to see himself suffer an injury on the Giants‘ artificial MetLife Stadium turf.
The field is renowned for being one of the least liked in the entire league, and Jacobs expressed his very clear feelings on the nature of the pitch in the lead up to week 12’s game against the Minnesota Vikings.
Packers’ Josh Jacobs Shares His Thoughts On MetLife Stadium
“Definitely the worst,” Jacobs said when asked to rank where MetLife Stadium ranked amongst the different surfaces to play on across the league. “Always been the worst. I know if I ever play there again I will never talk about it because I talked about it all week, how bad it was, and it bit me in the ass.”
Perhaps Jacobs’ words would have been even more emphatic if his knee injury had been more severe, but it was fairly clear what point he was trying to put across.
And as the reporter points out, perhaps the most remarkable feat of all this is that Jacobs only missed one full day of practice, having not participated on November 19th, and came in as a limited participant on November 20th.
As of the 20th, Jacobs – alongs with 15 other members of the team’s active roster – remains questionable to play this weekend.
MetLife Stadium Has A Poor Injury Record In The NFL
The pitch in New Jersey has a long history of being one of the most brutal and injury-prone for players to play on. Aaron Rodgers famously tore his Achilles in just his fourth offensive snap in his inaugural 2023 season with the New York Jets – who share the stadium with the Giants.
And later on that season, former Miami Dolphins edge rusher, Jaelan Phillips, suffered the exact same injury at the stadium, prompting Phillips’ ex teammate and now – ironically – Giants safety, Jevon Holland called the field “trash” in the aftermath of the injury to the defensive end.
The general trend of artificial “turf” being criticized by players, as opposed to natural grass, always seems to come to a head when MetLife is being discussed.
The artificial field covering is harder and has less shock absorption compared to grass, which makes landings harder, more painful and leads to a higher injury risk.
In addition, the pitch’s toughness can also lead to cleat’s getting stuck in the pitch, which when a player is otherwise moving at high speeds can easily cause them to rupture and tear key ligaments in the knee and other parts of the lower leg.
Despite the fact that both New York teams actually changed turf provider earlier in 2023, prior to both Rodgers’ and Phillips’ injuries later that fall, it has not seemed to make much of a difference – if any at all – to the almost constant swath of problems that seem to occur on that pitch.
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