The Steelers’ Acrisure Stadium field has sparked debate once again, and this time former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger weighed in. Having spent his whole career playing in that stadium, he has earned the right to speak. While the Steelers are one of the increasingly rare teams to play on grass, he believes there is simply too much football played on it. More specifically, too many Pittsburgh Panthers games—and they’ve got to go.
On Sunday, the Steelers and Browns had issues with the Acrisure Stadium field. Active players have spoken out about it, even Cam Heyward calling the field “shit”. Special teams captain Miles Killebrew suffered a likely season-ending knee injury, which Heyward attributed to the playing conditions. QB Aaron Rodgers, the latest Pittsburgh quarterback to play on that field, called it “borderline unplayable”. Most notably, All-Pro K Chris Boswell completely slipped while attempting a field goal because of the conditions.
“You can’t have a professional football team, not just the Steelers but the opponents, play on a surface like that”, Roethlisberger said of Acrisure Stadium, on his Footbahlin podcast, as transcribed by Mike Florio for Pro Football Talk. In his mind, the NFL is paying these players too much money to risk exposing them to this poor surface.
The issue with Acrisure Stadium is that both the Steelers and Panthers regularly play on the field, and high school championship games also use it during the NFL season. The grounds crew resods the field multiple times per season, but it’s still not enough. To solve the problem, Roethlisberger thinks Pitt needs its own stadium.
“And the only thing I can think of is — and I’ve been saying this for a while — I don’t think Pitt should play there anymore”, he said. “I firmly believe that Pitt should put like a 35,000-person stadium up [in] Oakland”. He argued that the Panthers only draw half the crowd the Steelers do at Acrisure Stadium, so it’s not good for anybody. And putting the stadium in Oakland makes it easier for the students. Oakland is, of course, the area of Pittsburgh in which the University of Pittsburgh is located.
I’m not a city planning expert, a stadium expert, or even a Pittsburgh expert, for that matter. I do know that the Steelers and every other NFL team should never play on a subpar surface, however. It’s really amazing given the revenue the league brings in that we would even be having this discussion. But then again, they don’t even want to pay full-time officials.
