Acrisure Stadium finally got the field it needed. The Steelers have replaced the turf that earned them an F-minus grade in last season’s NFLPA report card, a survey that ranked player opinions on facilities across the league.
That grade wasn’t just embarrassing, it was the worst in the entire survey. Pittsburgh finished dead last among all 32 teams, and the field conditions played a big part in that ranking. Not long after those results leaked out, team president Art Rooney confirmed the surface would be replaced.
Now, roughly four months later, it’s done. A new grass field has gone down at Acrisure Stadium, according to Steelers on SI’s Jack Markowski. Precision Turf, the company handling the installation, announced this week that Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass is now in place.
Why the Timing Mattered
Rooney had actually told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette back in late February that this move was already planned before the NFLPA numbers went public. It wasn’t purely a reaction, apparently, it was already in motion. There’s also a league requirement here; every playing surface has to meet standards set through lab and field testing, so this wasn’t really optional at some point.
The Tahoma 31 grass was installed in July on purpose. That’s not an arbitrary date, either. Sod needs time to root before it gets pounded on by players, and doing it too close to the preseason creates real problems.
Just ask anyone who remembers Super Bowl 57. The field at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona famously came apart because the grass hadn’t had enough time to settle, as George Toma, the longtime NFL groundskeeper, later explained. The Steelers clearly wanted to avoid a repeat of that mess.
As for the grass itself, Tahoma 31 is a Bermuda and bluegrass hybrid that handles cold weather better than standard Bermuda varieties. Teams in cold-weather cities have already made the switch; Soldier Field in Chicago uses it, and so does Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
The old surface at Acrisure Stadium was Kentucky bluegrass, and it simply couldn’t keep up with the workload. Steelers games alone put a lot of wear on it, but the field also hosts University of Pittsburgh games and high school football throughout the season. According to Rooney, that meant the field needed to be re-sodded two-to-three times per season just to stay functional.
Player Complaints Piled Up
Aaron Rodgers didn’t hold back when talking about the surface. After a Week 6 loss to the Cleveland Browns, the Steelers quarterback called it “borderline unplayable”.
He wasn’t alone in that assessment. Other players described the field as “too sandy, too slippery,” and “too gooey” at different points during the season, per the Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac. That’s a rough combination of complaints, honestly, since it suggests the surface was inconsistent depending on weather and time of year, not just uniformly bad.
Pittsburgh wasn’t the only team dealing with field criticism, either. Four other teams also received an F-minus in the NFLPA’s survey: the Tennessee Titans, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and both New York teams (the Jets and Giants, who share MetLife Stadium). The Seattle Seahawks, Carolina Panthers, and Buffalo Bills all landed an F grade, just one step above the bottom tier.
Rooney has left the door open on further changes down the road.
If the new grass field runs into the same problems as before, he’s said the team would consider switching to artificial turf altogether. For now, though, the Steelers are betting that Tahoma 31 solves a problem that’s followed the franchise for years.