When rookie defensive lineman Aidan Hutchinson was warming up pregame on the Bank of America Stadium turf going through some pass rush reps on air, his feet slipped out from under him and he wiped out.
According to Goff, the conditions on the field pregame were dangerous.
“I thought the field conditions were below NFL level standard, specifically pregame,” Goff said. “I don’t know what the deal is here, but they need to figure out a way for the turf to not feel like cement.”
Saturday did set a Bank of America Stadium record for the coldest game in stadium history. The temperature was 20 degrees at kickoff with wind chills at nine degrees. Goff said the turf conditions did get better as the game went on, but were pretty bad early on.
I wonder if it affected the Lions psychologically?
Reminiscent of the Eagles playoff loss when they iced up the field and wore better spikes. The Lions were a high powered team that year and the field turfed them. That and Scott Mitchell
I don’t know, I just remember that playoff loss against the Eagles in the mid 90s where the field was completely iced over and all of our guys looked like they were on rollerskates the entire game
The turf may have been a factor but that doesn’t stop you from tackling. That doesn’t stop you from failing to contain.
We all saw the poor tackle attempts but I also noticed several times where our edge guys bit on the run play and failed to contain allowing the play to get outside of them.
A rare phenomenon that occurs to objects when the temperature drops below 32 degrees.
It rained 0.25 - 0.50 inches on Thursday night then the temps dropped to 11 degrees on Friday night. It never got over 25 degrees during the game.
The…field…was…frozen.
Solution…build a f***ing dome or stop complaining. NFL fields are near the tip of the spear when it comes to turf management and playing surface technology (Golf greens at the top of the food chain).
There was NOTHING WRONG WITH THE PLAYING SURFACE. A natural grass surface would’ve been just as hard (most likely harder) with the soil (even sand-base) retaining more water than an artificial subsurface.
Jared can have his opinion, but the Panthers played on the same surface and set a franchise record in rushing yards. It didn’t bother their team one bit.
Bigger issues yesterday than the field no doubt, however, doesn’t mean they are wrong.
Main player I would be worried about with field conditions is Ragnow and his foot.
Lions complained about the field but they didn’t say it was the reason they lost.
Why on earth would you choose to have an outdoor stadium and then replace natural grass with artificial. Yeah, it doesn’t get cold in Charlotte that often but when it does, I assume the rubber pellets harden up.
Weather worked against us. Probably didn’t matter to the final outcome, but it didn’t help.
I haven’t watched the replay yet–I’ll have to do that on an empty stomach–but I’m eager to read or watch someone above my pay grade break down what was happening with our run defense. I understand getting beat by superior players, but this seemed more than that–scheme, coaching, lack of adjustment. And Darnold made a few really nice throws too. He likes playing the Lions.
And someone in the room though it was a genius idea to play SUPER wide on the D-Line. You could drive a car between those four guys and that was BEFORE the ball was snapped.