The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, kicks off on June 11, with matches spread across 16 venues. Eleven of those are NFL stadiums, and seven, including MetLife Stadium, AT&T Stadium, SoFi Stadium, NRG Stadium, Lumen Field, Gillette Stadium, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, are replacing their artificial turf with natural grass to meet FIFA’s requirements.
For NFL players who have spent years pushing for safer playing surfaces, the optics are hard to stomach. Former NFL quarterback Chris Simms didn’t mince words on the subject during a segment on NBC’s “Pro Football Talk,” going off on the league and the owners of the teams hosting the World Cup.
Chris Simms Rips NFL, Teams’ Owners Over World Cup Grass Double Standard
Simms framed the issue as a failure of values, revealing where the league’s priorities truly lie when it comes to NFL players.
“It’s actually embarrassing for the NFL,” Simms said. “It’s embarrassing for the owners. Again, it shows you know Europe caring about their people a little bit and their players. In America, we just care about the billionaires, to hell with everybody else in the civilization. We don’t give a s**t, we’re going to skew everything for them all the time. That’s it, it’s embarrassing.”
“America’s team’s owner [Jerry Jones], who’s always telling us about America and the great country, and that he’s not going to help out the Americans who play the sport that’s the biggest sport here, but we’re going to bring it in so Ronaldo and Messi can feel good on it,” Simms added. “Like, what the f**k are we doing? Like, it’s so stupid, it’s crazy, it’s so hypocritical.”
“All owners should be embarrassed that we’re going to these lengths to help out a bunch of soccer players, where it’s the fifth most popular sport in our country, but we’re going to go bend over backward to help them, where [in] the most popular sport in our country by far… we’re like, screw you players, go out and play on that shi**y a** surface, we don’t care about your knees, your head, or anything else,” Simms continued. “It’s all such bulls**t, the NFL should be embarrassed, the owners should be embarrassed.”
Players are more likely to get hurt on artificial turf or suffer more wear and tear after playing on it, which can lead to injuries. This is why they want to play on grass everywhere in the NFL. This has been a hot topic of discussion for many years, and the team owners’ different treatment of the soccer players has certainly offended many.
The reason most teams stick with artificial turf isn’t complicated. These surfaces require less maintenance, hold up better under heavy event schedules, and allow stadiums to host concerts, conventions, and other revenue-generating events without the burden of preserving a grass field. For owners operating billion-dollar venues, the math favors turf on every line item except the one that matters most, the players’ safety.
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The NFL teams don’t have to look far for a model that solves this problem. Real Madrid’s renovated Bernabeu Stadium, which reopened in late 2023 after a 1.76 billion-euro overhaul, features a retractable pitch system called Hypogea, designed by Spanish engineering firm SENER.
The system separates the natural grass surface into six trays, each weighing 1,500 tonnes, which slide on rails into an underground chamber fitted with climate control, LED grow lights, irrigation, and agronomic monitoring. The complete transformation from match-ready grass to event-ready floor takes less than five hours.
The Bernabeu has hosted concerts, NFL games, and, as usual, soccer matches, all while maintaining the quality of its natural playing surface. The grass is preserved and kept underground, allowing the stadium floor above to host various events as scheduled.
This year, the Cincinnati Bengals will play the Atlanta Falcons at the Bernabeu. Hopefully, the league will soon adopt that technology as it makes more money than any other professional sports league in the world.
