NFL grounds staff have pulled out all the stops to ensure that the Super Bowl surface will be a field of dreams.
The league has shipped in a one-time use natural grass surface from California for the NFL title game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday.
And it has been heavily prepared and tested over the past two weeks, leading up to the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.
Last year, players from both the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles publicly criticized the Super Bowl surface at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
"I'm not going to lie it was the worst field that I've ever played on," Eagles linebacker Reddick said after the game.
"It was very disappointing, it's the NFL.
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"You would think it would be better so we could get some better play, but it is what it is."
Since then NFL field director Ed Mangan has been replaced by Nick Pappas.
And Pappas is determined to make sure that the field will not be the storyline at this year's Super Bowl.
The grass being used at Allegiant Stadium – the Tifway II Bermuda strain – was grown at a sod farm in Northern California before being transported to Las Vegas.
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“Nick Pappas was visiting the sod farm even while that grass was growing to make sure he sees it from the time that it is very young and nurtures it and has an appreciation for how that surface is going to perform,” NFL executive vice president of health and safety Jeff Miller said.
“And, therefore, when we’re eventually moving it and bringing it into the Super Bowl time frame, he knows what needs to be done to make sure that the top dressing is handled...
"That he understands how it’s going to play and it’s given enough time to mature so it’s ready for Sunday.”
Pappas and his grounds crew have been testing the field's soil temperature and moisture for weeks, with a series of data-driven decisions.
And they have also used a robotic device called 'The Beast' to simulate players' cleat movement.
“The forces that this unit puts out are representative of the NFL athlete,” Pappas told The Athletic.
“And it can actually test the cleat-surface interaction for when a cleat goes down in the ground and whether it makes a rotational turn or translational slide.
"So, we’re tracking that and we’re looking at it to give us an idea of how the natural grass surface is performing."
The field was also installed in the field tray outside of Allegiant Stadium that allows it to get direct sunlight due to the facility's roof.
It was also rolled into the stadium for rehearsals for the pregame and halftime shows, before being put back in for good on Thursday before being covered with tarp.
It takes about 65 minutes for the tray to be moved into Allegiant Stadium.
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“The rain over the last couple of days has affected how they’ve chosen to treat it,” Miller added.
“They obviously want to be careful around halftime rehearsals and stuff to make sure they have time to remediate the field after people have been running up and back on it so it performs as well as it can.”
