The Pittsburgh Steelers had a serious scare in Week 6 when Chris Boswell slipped during a field goal attempt. It was a 54-yard try in the fourth quarter, which is well within Boswell’s range. However, Pittsburgh’s field was so torn up that Boswell ended up slipping on it. Not only did that cause the ball to make it anywhere close to the uprights, but it could’ve seriously injured Boswell. Thankfully, he’s okay, but Aaron Rodgers let everyone know that he wasn’t happy about the Steelers’ playing conditions.
However, former Steelers linebacker James Harrison thinks Rodgers needs to get used to that quickly.
“The big thing is, you’ve got two different teams playing on the surface,” Harrison said Tuesday on his Deebo and Joe podcast. “Right now, it ain’t even bad. Aaron, you ain’t seen it bad yet. Wait until the playoffs for the high school starts and the high school teams are playing in there.”
Harrison is correct that the Steelers aren’t the only team that plays at Acrisure Stadium. The University of Pittsburgh also has its home games there. Between the beginning of September and Week 6, the Steelers only played in Pittsburgh once. However, during that same time frame, Pitt played at Acrisure three times. That left the field torn up.
Luckily, the field is supposed to get fixed before the Steelers play on it again. However, like Harrison says, there’s a lot of the season left for the Steelers. With Pitt scheduled to play at Acrisure three more times in the coming months, and some local high school games set to take place there, the field might look much uglier as the season goes on.
Harrison even provided an example of when the field was especially bad.
“When we played, I think it was in 2007, it was raining, raining, raining. And I think Pitt had played before that, so they tried to do a swap over of the field,” he said. “They put the new turf over the old turf because it was so wet. We were playing Miami and my foot slides down into the dirt like over the top of my ankle. It’s like quarter of the way up my shin. He ain’t seen nothing yet.”
That game against the Miami Dolphins in 2007 took place on Nov. 26. It was a Monday night game, and Pitt had played there on Nov. 24. The Steelers beat the Dolphins 3-0 in one of the ugliest games in franchise history. Harrison is correct that the playing conditions were a major problem that day.
While that might be an extreme example, Harrison isn’t the only former player who thinks Pittsburgh’s field can be tough to play on. During that same podcast, former Steelers corner Joe Haden weighed in and gave his opinion.
“It definitely wasn’t the worst, but it definitely wasn’t the best,” Haden said. “I liked that it was grass, but I think during the beginning of the season it’ll be better than at the end of the season. They could do more of trying to keep people off of it.”
The Steelers aren’t the only team that shares their stadium with a college program. Others, like the Philadelphia Eagles, Miami Dolphins, and Las Vegas Raiders, also see college teams play on their field.
While the Steelers aren’t the only team dealing with this problem, it undoubtedly gives them a disadvantage. Yes, their opponents have to deal with those conditions, too. However, the chance of injury increases when the field is in such bad condition. Unfortunately, there’s nothing the Steelers can do about it. The situation is what it is, and they just have to hope that the grounds crew can maintain their field.
