“I’d rather practice in sleet, snow, thunderstorm with a chance of getting struck by lightning than to run indoors on the turf.” Travis Kelce isn’t one to shy away from the conversation about playing on artificial turf. And it’s for good reason. The NFL community knows just how dangerous they can be. 

But this time, what Kelce saw last week wasn’t related to injuries, yet it hasn’t kept him from making a very public demand to the NFL. 

“Turf in general radiates heat more than f—ing grass ever will,” Kelce said on the New Heights podcast. “… You shouldn’t be allowed to do that. You shouldn’t be allowed to put players on a field that does that. … NFL’s got to figure something out for s— like that. That’s insane.

Kelce was talking about one Week 2 game that had one of the toughest conditions this season, and all of it had to do with the playing surface. 

The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Tennessee Titans 24-20 in Music City on Sunday, September 20. While the game had its moments, perhaps the most bizarre visuals were of team staffers cooling down players’ shoes with water.

The game was played in blistering heat, with artificial turf’s temperature at Nissan Stadium reaching 157 degrees towards the end of the game. Conditions were so serious that one head coach even had to get medical attention! 

As head coach Nick Sirianni later explained, “It was hot as s—. I didn’t play a snap, and I had to get an IV.” And he wasn’t alone. 

Just a week ago, Titans players were seen applying water to their cleats after they had melted off in the heat. While Eagles tackle Jordan Mailata didn’t believe it before, when he arrived at Nissan Stadium, he quickly realized the gravity of the situation.

“Then we came out here; I was like, ‘I can see why they melted. It’s like a very deceiving, very deceiving heat out there.”

During post-game interviews, Eagles offensive lineman Cam Jurgens revealed he had switched multiple pairs of cleats because the rubber soles were melting. He could feel his feet burning and aching during the game.

“Halftime was like a NASCAR pit crew helping me get ready for the second half,” he said. “That turf was just radiating.”

That’s why when Kelce angrily demanded that the league do something about the issue, we weren’t surprised. “We got to get something. Like I understand if the turf drains water, but how does it f—ing handle heat?”

And that’s the question players had too. For instance, Mailata asked the same thing.

“I’ve never thought about how hot a stadium can be if it’s turf. [The heat] just sits there and bounces up into you. [The union] have got to bring it up. This is why we want all grass fields, to create a standard of play in the league where we’re not putting players in dangerous positions if we don’t have to.”

The logic is pretty simple: natural grass is able to cool itself by releasing water vapour into the air. Synthetic turfs don’t have that luxury. A Penn State study found that for air temperatures between 79°F and 85°F, synthetic turf surfaces measured between 120°F and 146°F.

A 2024 review in the International Journal of Biometeorology found that synthetic turf surface temperature was consistently higher than natural grass across selected studies. The differences ranged from roughly 9°C to 34°C in direct sunlight.

That’s part of the reason why when the 2026 FIFA World Cup came to North America, they made using natural grass a clear requirement. And among the changes that were made were bringing cool-season and warm-season grasses based on the city in question to ensure that even in the summer, the temperature of the grass won’t be a problem.

And that’s the same reason calls for the NFL adopting natural grass fields were raised once again. Players have long advocated for it, particularly citing the allegedly low risk of injuries, but the shocking conditions in the Tennessee game also drew attention to another reason why the move should be considered.

The Nashville stadium is a dome, and a heat dome traps heat in the affected area, which is characterized by low cloud cover. That allows ample entry of sunlight, but no way for the huge amounts of heat to escape. Meteorologists had warned of heat-related occurrences too.

On September 15, Memphis was at 99ºF (37ºC), and Nashville went as high as 100ºF (38ºC), per NASA. The latter temperature broke the daily-high record from 1927. According to the National Weather Service, Nashville alone set the record four times between July and September.

If you consider just how much heat the dome traps, it would feel more like an oven and less like a football stadium. 

That’s why the point Kelce and the rest of the players are making. Bring the change and keep players safe.