A lot of surfaces suck. I remember Scooby-Doo getting into big trouble with quicksand on more than one occasion. I played the video game Spy Hunter as a kid and oil slicks were things disgusting on the road. My son spilled pickle juice the other day and that was also unpleasant. All of those are stupid surfaces.
None of them compare to U.S. Bank Stadium.
The home of the Minnesota Vikings insists on athletes playing on a surface called "slit film turf" and we'll allow Kevin Seifert to start our piece here:
https://twitter.com/SeifertESPN/status/1711137954381373647#
Yeah, we agree. It's worth bringing up the idea of the Vikings' absolutely stupid playing surface because it's not safe for anyone and everybody knows it. Yet somehow it still is able to claim victims week after week..
This week, Travis Kelce went down for the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 5 on a scary fall in the first half. Kelce was able to return to the sidelines with his helmet on as if he was going to play again, but the way he went down certainly didn't look like a guy who was going to be counted on anytime soon.
Far beyond Kelce, this turf has been a significant issue for a lot of players around the league. Just ask the L.A. Chargers what they think of "slit film turf" after watching Mike Williams go down with a season-ending injury on the stuff in Week 3.
It's not as if the Vikings themselves don't have similar concerns. Former Chiefs cornerback Mike Hughes was once a first-round cornerback pick for Minnesota who tore his ACL playing on this field. The same thing can be said of running back Dalvin Cook. Stupid playing surface? They'd all say it.
Somehow the NFL still hasn't mandated the permanent removal of this stuff, despite the cries from the NFL Players Association to get rid of it all around the league. You'd think Roger Goodell would be racing to make such a move and even to help pay for teams to lose it. After all, an injured Kelce (or Cook or Williams or...) is bad for the league. It's a lesser product and yet somehow that doesn't move the needle.
The good news is that the turf is scheduled to be replaced after this season, but that doesn't help anyone right now. In the present, U.S. Bank Stadium continues to host the world's stupidest playing surface.