EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsPapa Turf had seen Copacabana Beach only from his hotel room. He had spent more time managing a rehab effort at the stadium than sleeping. But when Tyler Loop's walk-off 56-yard field goal -- kicked from the edge of the NFL logo -- snuck inside the left upright to give the Baltimore Ravens a last-second victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Rio de Janeiro last month, it wasn't just the Ravens who were happy with the result."Honestly, [I was] feeling like that was a perfect way to end an exciting game," said Nick Pappas, the NFL's field director, who was hoping "field czar" would stick as a moniker instead of the "Papa Turf" sobriquet bestowed upon him by a league executive. Pappas was watching Loop from the far end zone, not caring which team won, only that nobody would have to talk about the grass afterward. "To see it end on a play where the cleat-to-surface interaction is so critical, on a long, important kick, was added validation that my decisions and efforts throughout the process were the right ones."That kick ended a weekslong odyssey through once-in-a-generation rain during what was supposed to be the dry season, the busy local soccer schedule, cargo flights from the Netherlands, hurried processing through Brazilian customs, a crash course in agronomy for the media and a round-the-clock, maddeningly slow stitching of the field by Zamboni-like sewing machines to render the field a nonfactor. Loop's sure footing on the final kick came on the part of the field that was at the heart of the frenzied repair."I thought overall the field held up well," Ravens coach Jesse Minter said after the game. "I didn't see a bunch of plays where guys were falling down or anything like that."The NFL did it all again for next Sunday's game in Paris, albeit without the late-night drama and transcontinental logistics.Pappas and the NFL had the benefit of time to get the Stade de France field ready for the Saints and Steelers, an important difference from Brazil, where Pappas had to cut off the field-sewing process to leave enough time to paint the yard markings and team logos. Grass maintenance is such a niche discipline that very few understood just how unusual and aggressive a decision it was to stitch up a field with a game just days away."Probably only people who are in the turf industry would maybe have the insight to say, 'You're stitching on a game week, huh? That's interesting,'" said Pappas, who oversees all the NFL's playing surfaces.The challenges for Rio and Paris were both climate related: historic rain in Rio and record heat during the European summer, when the field for Paris was being grown at a farm in Italy. The solution was the same -- a decades-old technology that involves stitching synthetic fibers into a grass field, creating a hybrid field that provides better footing for players.That Rio would need extra management was not a surprise to Pappas or the NFL. Rio's famed Maracan� is used heavily by local soccer clubs. In 2024, when the NFL first played in Sao Paolo, slipping was an issue.It's not unusual in the United States for stadiums to be resodded after a rainy game or heavy usage that causes damage. But in Brazil, the sod farm that could supply a new field for Maracan� was also in the rainy zone, so the grass that would have been needed to resod was also sopping wet. Resodding was out."I never felt like the field in Rio was like a disaster. I never felt it was going to fail. I didn't think that we were ever going to have to have the conversation of, can we play there." Pappas said.The NFL has canceled games because of poor field conditions -- in 2016, the Hall of Fame game was canceled and a 2018 Monday night game was moved out of Mexico City to Los Angeles -- but those were considered black eyes, Pappas said, to be avoided at all costs. The NFL declined to provide a precise figure on its investment in the field preparation process, stressing that its focus is on getting it right.The situation was less dire for Paris' Stade de France. The NFL had intended to put down a hybrid field that was being grown at a farm in Milan, Italy. But that field -- a synthetic carpet with soil and seed added, so that the natural grass grows into the carpet -- wasn't flourishing because of the extraordinary heat in Europe. So, in early September, Pappas pivoted. The NFL had a natural grass plot from that same Milan farm laid in the stadium. Last week, it was stitched to reinforce it. There have been just a handful of soccer matches on the field in the last few weeks.The relatively light use of the Stade de France made the process easier because there were breaks in the stadium usage that allowed the NFL to install its field. In Rio, Pappas made the decision to stitch the field about 12 days before the Sept. 27 game, but the NFL didn't have control of the field until a week before the game."There's not a whole lot any of us can do," Dr. John Sorochan, the NFLPA's field consultant, said. "The actual triaging doesn't happen until right after they take over control."The union would prefer the league get control of stadiums earlier, to maximize how much the fields are managed. It is an issue the NFLPA could raise during negotiations with the league as the NFL seeks to expand its slate of international games. As is, the NFL negotiates directly with the stadiums for game and field-control timing. Pappas must also navigate local federations who have their own concerns about what kind of field will be left behind after the NFL leaves. In Melbourne, for instance, the stadium replaced the field after the Rams and 49ers played, in anticipation of a big Australian rules football match.Eleven days before the Rio game, the hulking stitching machines used for the project were loaded onto a cargo plane in the Netherlands, bound for Rio. Stitching fields is not new -- the technology has existed since the late 1990s -- although it is more common in European soccer leagues than in the United States. One example of a stateside reinforced natural grass surface: Green Bay's Lambeau Field.The machines landed in Rio on Sunday, a week out from the game. By Wednesday afternoon, they were through customs in Brazil -- "Maybe the fastest anything has ever gone through customs legally in Brazil," Pappas said -- and they were at the stadium by 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night. By midnight, stitching had begun, with little more than three days to go until game day.The overgrown sewing machines have bobbins of fibrous yarn. A needle drives the thread directly into the ground, creating a hybrid field from a grass field. The goal is to drive the fiber below the height of the grass. In spots where the grass is worn away, the fiber is visible. It might be unsightly, but those fibers protect the existing grass and create additional traction. For players, the field still feels and plays like fully natural grass.Stitching a field is numbingly methodical. The needles are driven into the ground, and then the machines move up 2 centimeters and repeat the process, over and over. It takes about two hours to go 100 yards. In Rio, there were two machines and four operators -- one per machine, working in two 12-hour shifts. With the very limited time available in Rio, Pappas decided to stitch the middle of the field, which was the most worn. The area from the top of the numbers on one side of the field to the top of the numbers on the other side, a bit outside the hash marks, was stitched, so that the NFL's biggest players, who dig their cleats in at the line of scrimmage, would be on the reinforced area, as would the kickers.The stitching continued unabated for about 31 hours -- nobody was getting much sleep by then -- ending around 9 a.m. on Friday morning, just enough time to paint the field markings and let the paint dry.After Loop's kick went through, and the exhaling was over, the focus turned almost immediately to Paris. With plenty of time to spare, the entire field at the Stade de France was stitched last week, readying it for Sunday and finally sewing up the NFL's painstaking month of turf first aid."It is," Sorochan said of the painstaking work, "like watching grass grow."
