GLENDALE, Ariz. — Players were furiously changing cleats during Super Bowl 2023, but ice skates or water shoes might have been a better choice.
With members of the Chiefs and Eagles slipping on routes, cutbacks and kickoffs, footwear changes were made at halftime but answers still proved elusive and stole some of the thunder from the Chiefs’ epic 38-35 win on the grass at State Farm Stadium.
“I’m not going to lie: It was the worst field I ever played on,” Eagles pass-rusher Haason Reddick said.
The grass was grown for two years in advance of this game at a local sod farm in Phoenix, installed two weeks ago and rolled out each morning for sunlight under an open roof at State Farm Stadium, according to ReadHuddleUp.com. All at the cost of $800,000.
“Terrible,” Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata said in the losing locker room. “It was like playing on a water park.”
Social media sounded off on the field conditions. A Fox in-game report cited the type of turf as Tahoma 31 Bermuda grass.
Two former NFL offensive linemen summed it up succinctly: Fox analyst Mark Schlereth said, “this field is absolute trash” and “the NFL should be absolutely embarrassed,” while former Giant Marshall Newhouse chimed in that “Arizona’s field being sh—y is the most obvious thing to players but not known collectively. It’s CONSISTENTLY a slick and unstable turf for being grass.”
Reddick played his first four seasons in Arizona, where complaints about a slippery field date back to college football championship games played in 2010 and 2015.
“Disappointed,” Reddick said. “It’s the Super Bowl. Maybe we can get some better play. But it is what it is. Maybe the league will look at it and tell Arizona they have to step their stuff up.”
Reddick changed cleats for additional spikes and couldn’t find a difference.
“I beat my man a couple times and I’m slipping,” Reddick said. “I just couldn’t turn the corner.”
Even the winning team had complaints.
“The field was kind of terrible,” Chiefs pass-rusher Frank Clark said. “It looked like they laid strips down or something like that to cover up what they had before. We’ve had this problem in Arizona before.”
What was the Chiefs’ response?
“There were like four dudes changing cleats at halftime — or had tape or were doing something to figure it out,” Clark said. “Before plays, I started just digging in. When you get on that paint, it’s slippery.”
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni didn’t want it to make his comments sound like sour grapes after a loss.
“When you say something like that, it’s not like we were playing on ice and they were playing on grass,” Sirianni said. “We all had to figure out our shoes. You do your best to figure out the playing surface as soon as you possibly can, sometimes you have to change cleats in the middle of the game. Same way as if you had to change a game plan or a play.”