Kelly Stafford, the wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, is tired of the NFL’s failure to replace artificial turf with natural grass.
Unlike many players who have complained about artificial turf over the years, her biggest concern isn’t simply knee and ankle injuries. It’s head injuries.
Kelly Stafford took to Instagram this week to ask why a league that generates billions of dollars in revenue still makes its players compete on artificial turf surfaces when natural grass is a viable option.
Kelly Stafford Wants The NFL To Do More To Protect Players From Head Injuries
While Kelly Stafford acknowledged that injuries are inevitable in football, she argued that doesn’t mean the NFL shouldn’t try to eliminate unnecessary, fixable risks.
“GET RID OF TURF. PLEASE,” she wrote in an Instagram Story. “Will it fix everything? No. Will it eliminate injuries? Absolutely not. But my goodness, wouldn’t it be a step in the right direction?
“You want your ‘stars’ to last in this league? The guys who bring in the viewers, fill the stadiums, sell the jerseys and make the league billions? Then why aren’t we doing EVERYTHING we can to protect them?
“… You have the money. You have the resources. You have the ability to lead the way. No, grass isn’t going to solve every problem. But doing nothing because we can’t fix everything? That’s not good enough.”
Her concerns about players’ heads hitting artificial turf aren’t entirely theoretical, either.
Her husband, Matthew Stafford, took a hard hit in a January 2024 playoff game against the Detroit Lions that drove his head into the ground. He was evaluated for a concussion, but was somehow cleared to return.
The Rams quarterback has also previously said he prefers to play natural grass. In September 2025, Matthew Stafford noted that NFL stadiums hosting major soccer matches were installing natural grass for those games, while football players are still expected to play on artificial turf.
“I wanna play on grass every chance I get. I’m an old man,” he said.
The NFL And The Players Have Been Arguing About Artificial Turf For Years
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told the media in 2022 that league stats showed little difference in safety between artificial turf and grass.
That was even with NFL Players Association data from 2012-18, claiming the opposite. The NFLPA data said there is a 28 percent higher rate of non-contact lower-body injuries on artificial turf, including 69 percent more foot and ankle injuries.
Since then, the NFL hasn’t changed its position.
Earlier this year, the league claimed that injury rates on artificial turf and natural grass were virtually identical. The league also maintained that injury severity didn’t differ between the surfaces.
Despite those dubious claims, given how much money the NFL makes, asking it to spend some of it on a simple way to enhance player safety doesn’t seem unreasonable.