Quote:It's true the field is crap. It is made up of thousands of trays of grass about 4ft x 4ft and put together in mosaic form. Back in August our field crew was shipped to Houston to try to get the field ready for an exhibition game after their field crew manager quit at a moment's notice. Both stadiums are operated by SMG.

 

Our field crew went there and placed the trays together doing the best they could and at one point the management told our field crew it was good enough and they could go home. Our crew refused to go home until they believed the field was good enough for play and spent another 6 hours into the night working on it in an attempt to make it ready for the next day's game.

 

Clowney got his cleat stuck in one of the seams between the trays. That's how the injury occurred. It had nothing to do with conditioning.

 

Regards..........................the Chiefjag

Chief's got it right.  The two primary drivers of the field being constructed this way:

 

1) The trays allow for the sod to be easily transported in-and-out of the stadium so that the grass can grow in an outdoors environment.  NRG is rarely opened, so there's not enough natural light to grow grass inside the stadium.

2) Any field surface must be completely removable so that the Texas Livestock Show and Rodeo (the other major tenant of NRG) can operate in the spring.

 

I seem to recall reading an article or a report on why the decision was made to use this system as opposed to alternatives a few years ago.  I can't find it at the moment, however.

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