NFLPA reiterates preference for "high-quality, natural grass surfaces"

The NFL and NFL Players Association have agreed on new standards for playing surfaces. Although the new approach counts as progress in the effort to give football players the best possible workplaces, the NFLPA wants more.

“While our player members have been clear about their overwhelming preference for high-quality, natural grass surfaces, we're encouraged that their demands for more consistent and safer fields across the board are taking a step in the right direction," the NFLPA said Thursday, after the league announced the change during a media conference call. "We look forward to continuing this work with the NFL on behalf of our player members."

The league clings to the notion that non-contact injury rates are not significantly different between grass and artificial turf. Players resort to the reality that they prefer the softer surface provided by the real stuff.

And the issue will continue to be tied up in collective bargaining.

It continues to be a strange way to do business for the NFL. Protection of the players, either as human beings or "investments," takes a back seat to holding the rope when it comes to the concessions the two sides will make within the fuller universe of terms and conditions relative to the labor-management relationship.

But that's where we are. The players won't get high-quality grass surfaces unless they give up something else. Even if it's part of the deal for expanding the regular season to 18 games, the players could have gotten some other benefit from the league, if the owners weren't insistent on making what should be non-negotiable into a negotiating point.