Doyel: Replacing turf with grass will cost a fortune; losing another franchise QB costs more
INDIANAPOLIS – Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson doesn’t need better luck. He needs a better playing surface.
And you’d think the Colts would give it to him. I mean, if Richardson pans out over the next decade – if he becomes what it’s obvious he could become – what’s that worth to the franchise, and to the city?
What are three or four games a year on primetime television worth to Downtown Indianapolis? That’s what the Colts will have, if they can keep Richardson healthy and reap the winning benefits. How about annual trips to the postseason, meaning an extra game or two Downtown, more reservations at restaurants, more nights at hotels, more jerseys sold and tickets sold and beer sold – what’s all that worth?
What’s another trip to the Super Bowl worth?
The answer, Jim Irsay, is priceless. And you know it.
So enough with the talk of what Indianapolis needs from Lucas Oil Stadium, a multi-purpose facility that hosts concerts and Monster Jam truck shows and marching band competitions. Would it be expensive to rip up the fake grass, replace it with the real stuff, and do what it takes to keep that grass looking brand spanking new?
Hell yeah it would be expensive.
Try losing our second franchise quarterback since 2019 to injury. That sure seems to be where we’re headed after Richardson has been knocked out of three of his first four NFL games.
What would that cost?
Are we really quibbling about lawn care?
Five games, six Colts starters with concussions
It’s possible the unforgiving turf of Lucas Oil Stadium is to blame for the severity of Richardson’s first and third injuries. The first one was in the opener against Jacksonville, when he took a hit that sure looked innocuous. Knee? That hit hurt his knee? There was no direct shot to the knee, not until it landed on the turf anyway. He banged it there, and you notice he wasn’t diagnosed with a sprained or strained knee, but a bruise. That’s how hard he hit the turf.
Rather, that’s how hard the turf hit him.
Richardson’s third injury, the one Sunday against Tennessee, also was at home. It happened when he was running down the field and 6-2, 252-pound Titans linebacker Harold Landry III was hopping along for the end, riding Richardson to the ground, where the Colts quarterback landed on his throwing shoulder.
Meaning, his shoulder ran into the hardest artificial playing surface in the NFL. That’s what the Colts are said to have in that silt-film turf, considered the least forgiving in the NFL. The Colts plan to swap it out for the softer monofilament turf after the season, which won’t do Richardson much good now, will it? He needed that softer turf last month. And he needs grass next.
Don’t forget his second injury, either. No, it didn’t happen at home, so we can’t blame the concussion he suffered in Houston on the brutal turf at Lucas Oil Stadium. But we can do this. We can note that the Colts and Texans have a similar playing surface – sorry, they have a similar multi-purpose stadium – and we can assume the brain injury he suffered Sept. 17, when the back of his helmet bounced off the turf at NRG Stadium in Houston, would’ve happened at Lucas Oil Stadium, too.
How can I make that assumption? Watch footage of the hit Colts tight end Mo Alie-Cox took Sunday. The back of his head bounced off the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium, same as Richardson in Houston. He left the game with a concussion. Same as Richardson in Houston.
The Colts have had six players miss time with concussions this season. That’s six starters out of 22 starting positions. The turf here didn’t cause all six concussions, but it damn sure caused at least one, maybe more, and probably contributed to Richardson’s knee injury in the opener.
How many other Colts have been injured this season because of that turf?
Doyel last month: Richardson's concussion was the news, but Ryan Kelly's could be worse
'What do you think is happening to us?'
Listen to Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin.
“When you plant (on the turf here), it's shockwaves,” he told IndyStar sports writer Chloe Peterson. “The turf talks back, and it doesn't feel good. You feel a difference now. Your cuts and stuff might be a certain way on turf, but that grass has just been good for a long time.
“You can feel a difference in your body though – I even talked to the coaches. When we're practicing and they're standing on the sideline their body feels different, whether we practice on turf or grass, and they're not even running. So if that's happening to them, and they're just watching, what do you think is happening to us?"
Is that why the Colts have lost more games to injury than 30 of the other 31 teams in the NFL? Man Games Lost NFL found the Colts to be the second-most injured team between 2009-22, just behind the Giants, Peterson reported. The Colts have had more than 3,000 games lost because of player injuries since 2009, roughly 500 more than the average NFL team, according to the site's data. That’s a 20% increase over the NFL average.
Is the turf guilty for all of it? Of course not. But you heard Zaire Franklin; it’s partly to blame.
Does anyone really care what it will cost to put grass in there? How many collectible guitars would that cost you, Mr. Irsay? Maybe you could sell your Beatles drum set. Remember what helped you buy that toy in the first place: Football.
Remember your No. 1 goal: Winning another Super Bowl.
What in the name of John, Paul, George and Ringo are we doing here?
Someone paid for 26 million pounds of dirt
Every time something special comes to Lucas Oil Stadium, somebody writes a check. The city, the Colts, the Capital Improvement Board – somebody pays for 26 million pounds dirt to be trucked into the stadium and spread across the surface for the AMA Supercross event in March. Six days later the dirt was gone and hardwood floors were in place for a junior volleyball tournament. Who paid for that?
When European soccer powerhouses Chelsea and Inter Milan visited in 2013, the turf was covered with some of the finest grass this side of a Grateful Dead concert.
Who paid for that?
Where’s the energy to pay for Anthony Richardson’s future? Because let’s be clear: His future and the Colts’ future are one and the same. You saw what happened when Andrew Luck kept getting hurt. The Colts replaced him in 2017 with Scott Tolzien, then replaced him with Jacoby Brissett because OMG, and that team went 4-12. When Luck retired in 2019 the Colts replaced him again with Brissett and went 7-9. Then it got Biblical: Brissett begat Philip Rivers who begat Carson Wentz who begat Matt Ryan who begat Anthony Richardson.
Are we – are the Colts – seriously not going to do everything possible to prevent that from happening again? Pull up that turf. Put down grass. Make the playing surface softer for your franchise quarterback, not to mention your tight end (Alie-Cox), All-Pro linebacker (Shaquille Leonard), Pro Bowl center (Ryan Kelly), defensive end (Kwity Paye) and left tackle (Bernhard Raimann). Those are the six players who have suffered concussions this season.
Again, the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium didn’t cause all of them. We’ll never know how many that turf really did cause, but we know this: Natural grass is softer. And we can hope for this: Perhaps visiting players, free agents, will choose Indianapolis a bit more commonly if it means eight or nine home games a year on the grass here. Plus the annual trip to Jacksonville, which plays on natural turf.
Houston has the fake stuff. So does Tennessee. Let free agents think about that when they’re considering playing there, or on the soft grass here.
Or we could just keep doing what we’re doing, accepting that Lucas Oil Stadium is a multi-purpose facility that requires green-colored cement because Luke Combs sings here and motorcycles race here and Monster Trucks do whatever the hell they do here. Plus the car shows and band competitions.
Question: Would Lucas Oil Stadium have been built for any of that, without an NFL team in town?
Another question: What’s the point of a billionaire owning an NFL team and telling everyone he wants nothing more than to get to the Super Bowl – if he’s not willing to pay whatever it takes to increase the odds?
Another question: What’s 10 or 15 years of Anthony Richardson worth to this city?
The answer to all of this is green, the color of grass, the color of money.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: If Colts want to protect Anthony Richardson, replace turf with grass
