Ted Phillips and Bears Just Don’t Get It When it Comes to Turf
Dan Pompei had a sit down with Ted Phillips and touched on a variety of topics including the lockout, Lovie Smith’s contract extension, proposed rule changes and old faithful – the Soldier Field turf. Teddy Bear’s response regarding the turf is what set this post into motion. Here’s the question and answer from
:
"Have you thought about replacing the grass at Soldier Field with an infill surface?We won’t do that. We’ve had great success at Soldier Field in December and January. The grass field there will never be top-notch late in the season, but it’s more of a perception issue than a real negative issue. The players know how to play on it, and frankly, it’s been part of our home-field advantage. If the time ever comes that the technology gives us an infill surface that plays like grass, and more importantly the studies about lower-extremity injuries show there are not quite the discrepancies that they show now, we’ll consider making a switch at that time. I don’t know that time will ever come. I admit there is no completely conclusive study that’s been done, but the tendency in the studies I’ve seen is that there is too high of an incidence of ankle and knee injuries on infill surfaces versus grass. We have too many millions of dollars tied up in our players to risk that right now."
Ted’s response tells me that he is completely out of touch with his team.
If the playing surface is such an advantage for the Bears, why have high profile players like Jay Cutler and Brian Urlacher been complaining about it any chance they get? To call that quagmire an advantage is simply stupid. Let’s put a few things in perspective on both sides of the ball.
On offense, Mike Martz’s offense relies on precision timing; timing which depends on players where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. How does a wide receiver make a precision cut when the turf is coming out from under his feet?
On the defensive side of the ball, Lovie Smith’s defense relies on under-sized, fast guys up front. You remember when Mark Hatley brought Keith Traylor and Ted Washington in to “drop 700 lbs of ass” in the middle of the Bears’ defensive line to protect Brian Urlacher? Those guys were replaced with smaller, faster, get-up-the-field guys like Tommie Harris and Tank Johnson when Lovie came to town. When December rolls around and the turf is not much more than green-painted dirt larger, stronger opposing offensive linemen push our undersized defensive linemen around like they’re on roller skates.
It’s time to stop pretending that this isn’t an issue and invest in some new turf. Play to your teams’ strengths on both sides of the ball or re-build the team into more of a ground and pound style of play.