Grounds crews were still cutting grass with hand scissors on Saturday, one day before the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys were set to play at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, according to the Associated Press.
The NFL sent field experts and groundskeepers to Brazil all week to prepare the surface for Sunday’s game. The league also applied fiber to the turf using a new machine called the GrassMaster Stitch Machine, on top of the manual scissor trimming reported by the AP.
Players from both teams had voiced concern about the field earlier in the week, and the NFL Players Association issued a statement raising alarms of its own.
NFL Field Director Nick Pappas said Saturday that “things check out” and posted a video of the field at 12:54 a.m. Sunday to show its condition. The late hour of that post shows how long it took the league to sign off on the surface, and a good-looking field before kickoff does not guarantee it will hold up once players are on it.
Pappas was blunter earlier in the week about what the league is up against playing outside the U.S.
“Our fields are where they are today in America because of how long we’ve worked at it. Not everywhere we travel is going to have the same resources, same climate, same available type of grass, same tools at their beck and call like we have in the United States. It becomes challenging. How can we put it on a plane and fly it there? Just like the rest of the game: what can we put on a plane, what can we put on a ship, and how do we execute to make it a successful Sunday?”
NFLPA Executive Director JC Tretter tied the situation directly to player safety and the league’s push for more international games.
“This reinforces one of our concerns about international expansion. Two of the three games played in Brazil have had field-related issues. That’s not a coincidence. This time of year makes it extremely challenging to maintain the kind of grass surface we expect at the NFL level. Our guys are exceptional at what they do, and I’m confident they’ll put on a terrific game in Rio this week. They always do. But we owe it to them to provide the best possible opportunity to succeed. Players can overcome a lot. But they shouldn’t have to overcome the field.”
The scramble comes as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has confirmed the league wants to eventually base multiple teams outside the United States.
