{"id":733425,"date":"2026-06-13T03:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T03:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/733425\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T03:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T03:59:11","slug":"49ers-george-kittle-advocates-for-grass-nfl-fields-while-watching-usmnts-fifa-world-cup-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/733425\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers&#8217; George Kittle Advocates for Grass NFL Fields While Watching USMNT&#8217;s FIFA World Cup Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle wondered if grass fields could primarily be used instead of turf for NFL games while watching the United States men&#8217;s national team compete in the 2026 FIFA World Cup at Sofi Stadium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">&#8220;Also this grass looks great on Sofi&#8217;s field\u2026 wonder if we could get that all season,&#8221; Kittle wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Kittle is coming off a 2025 season in which he hauled in 57 receptions for 628 yards and seven touchdowns, although he suffered a <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/niners-te-george-kittle-carted-off-field-with-apparent-lower-right-leg-injury-vs-eagles\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">torn Achilles<\/a> in San Francisco&#8217;s 23-19 win over the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The game was played at Lincoln Financial Field, which uses a <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/eagles\/onsi\/news\/philadelphia-eagles-hybrid-grass-turf-nfl-ideas-playing-surfaces\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">combination<\/a> of grass and artificial turf for NFL games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The stadium was one of <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/48939622\/from-gridiron-pitch-how-nfl-stadiums-transformed-2026-fifa-world-cup\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">several NFL venues<\/a> that changed the playing surface for the World Cup, as the tournament&#8217;s games must be played on natural grass. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Kittle is far from the only player advocating for the NFL to switch from turf to grass, as New York Giants offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor shared his belief.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">&#8220;I&#8217;m going into year 10, and I can say wholeheartedly that grass feels way better than turf,&#8221; Eluemunor said, per <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/sports\/soccer\/turf-world-cup-slap-face-nfl-players-rcna347990\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Rohan Nadkarni<\/a> of NBC News. &#8220;With MetLife getting grass, obviously it&#8217;s cool for FIFA and the World Cup. It&#8217;s one of the biggest stages in the world but, at the same time, the NFL as a whole is one of the most profitable businesses in the world, and so you would think that us as players would have a say in the fields that we get to play on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The NFL Players Association previously <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/nflpa\/p\/DZaN_M4jb9s\/?hl=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> that 92 percent of the league&#8217;s players prefer natural grass.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle wondered if grass fields could primarily be used instead of turf&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-733425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}