Why the Bills’ New Grass is “Ass” 🌱

It was a cool week to be a sports content creator. Between Cullen Honohan (@allhailbball) becoming the first solo creator to land a jersey patch deal in college hoops, Snapback Sports doing the same thing in college football, and YouTuber Brett Kollmann getting hired by the NFL Network, the balance is shifting away from “traditional media” and toward “creator-led.”

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: Why the Bills’ New Grass is “Ass”

📉 Biggest Loser: Why Can’t NFL Players Wear Tinted Visors?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: How Crab Shells Make Your Gloves Stickier

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The Buffalo Bills have one of the most high-tech fields in the entire NFL, so why are some players calling it “ass?”

Any football fan who’s been online recently knows that the new, $2.2 billion Highmark Stadium has received heavy criticism for everything from obstructed views to the size of its scoreboards. However, after the team played its first preseason game in the stadium, a new complaint emerged, but this time, it came from the players.

Growing Pains: After utilizing artificial turf for the last 52 years in the old Highmark Stadium, Bill’s owner, Terry Pegula, decided that this new stadium would become the NFL’s 15th venue with real, natural grass. Obviously, players loved this decision; however, even though the Bills used the same New Jersey-based turf farm that has installed the fields of the:

After the team’s first preseason game, one player called the new playing surface “ass,” with another calling it “soft, but not in a good way.”

Now, for any fans who actually watched the game, you might have noticed huge divots being taken out of the field as early as pregame warm-ups. In fact, at one point, a ref had to stop the game to repair a loose chunk of sod in the backfield.

But what if I told you this was all part of the plan?

Environmental Adjustments: It’s no secret that growing real grass in a climate as cold as Buffalo is no easy task. In fact, the only comparable stadium that does it is Lambeau Field, which is why when the Bills were designing their new stadium, they relied heavily on their grounds crew to understand how to grow their grass.

In fact, like the Packers, the Bills reportedly invested millions of dollars in boilers, pumps, and over 34 miles of tubing beneath the grass surface to keep it at a constant temperature in the low 60s and melt any snow before it can accumulate.

The team also plans to use these massive grow lights in between games to keep the grass alive and healthy, even during the coldest months.

Taking Root: Now, even though this grass, which was installed last October, received negative marks from some players, according to team officials, “from a playability and safety perspective, everybody’s happy.” They also said problems like divots or dead spots will happen less and less as the field matures and the root system grows deeper.

But honestly, I’m sure anything is better than playing on cold artificial turf.

Why aren’t NFL players allowed to wear dark-tinted visors during games?

The short answer is safety, but the real answer is actually a lot more complicated than you might think.

The OG: Even though players will often wear custom visors during practice or warm-ups, the trend actually started by accident back in 1988, when a then-rookie offensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings named Randall McDaniel got poked in the left eye the Friday before his first-ever game, resulting in him having to wear an eye patch.

However, not wanting his opponents to see the patch, long-time Vikings Equipment manager Dennis Ryan fashioned a dark face shield to his helmet with zip ties.

In fact, even when McDaniels removed the patch from his eye, he continued to wear the dark visor for the next decade, believing it gave him an advantage since the d-linemen across from him couldn’t see what direction his eyes were looking.

But then, in 1998, everything changed.

The Ban: By then, dark-tinted visors had exploded in popularity across football, largely because of their look. However, the league believed that they prevented medical trainers and doctors from accurately assessing injuries, like concussions, since they couldn’t see a player’s eyes without removing their helmet, which is risky for a player with a possible head or neck injury.

So they simply banned dark visors, and for the next 20 years, only players with specific medical exemptions for things like light sensitivity and migraines were allowed to wear visors during games with any tint at all.

So why can players wear tinted visors today?

New Product On The Block: In 2019, Oakley released their Prizm Clear shields. These are the light pink visors you’ve likely seen players wear, which actually are able to filter out the color red to help increase color contrast, improving players’ visual acuity and helping increase their depth perception.

But that’s not the full story.

Because, as Sports Illustrated pointed out, when the NFL announced a 4-year deal with Oakley in 2019, the league changed it’s rules to allow for lightly tinted visors, it probably had less to do with how much players liked it or even safety, and a lot more to do with the fact that they could now charge Oakley tens of millions of dollars per year for premiere advertising real estate that it wasn’t previously monetizing.

The NFL really will do anything for a few extra bucks…

These three college students used a pile of crab shells to solve one of the biggest problems in sports…

Let me explain.

The Problem: While playing for the University of Maryland in 2012, tight end Matt Furstenburg realized he was going through a new pair of football gloves every two to three days.

Not only was this incredibly wasteful, but it’s also pretty expensive for most people to buy more than one or two pairs of gloves every year (much less every week). So, Matt set out to see if there was a way he could increase the stickiness of his gloves without buying a new pair, and the solution he stumbled upon doesn’t even seem legal…

The Idea: Around this same time, two biochemistry students named Chanda and Kevin were researching a polymer derived from crab shells at the University of Maryland.

During their research, they found that the natural resin they could pull from crab shells was extremely tacky, just like a football glove.

And after linking up with Matt, the trio went through dozens of prototypes starting in 2012. Matt tested different gel variations on the field and with his teammates, who then gave feedback on the smell, texture, and color.

It works by rubbing a small dot of gel on your old football gloves, which forms a thin film that provides the same tackiness for about 15-25 catches as when you first bought them. The gel takes about 15 seconds to dry, allowing players to apply it multiple times per game.

The Execution: After 20 prototypes and about two years, the three founders finally landed on Grip Boost's current formula. They even entered it into a start-up competition at their university and took first place, using the $2,500 in prize money to file their first patents and create their first website.

But the best part is, unlike products like Stickum, Grip Boost is fully legal at all levels since it doesn’t transfer any residue to the ball or other players.

The company is currently selling one two-ounce bottle for $15.00, which might not seem like much, but it’s a lot cheaper than a new pair of gloves.

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

The coolest part about creators working so closely with traditional institutions (media, sports properties, etc.) is that they don’t have to.

Now, I’m not saying I’d turn down a job with NFL Network or a free jersey patch from a D1 school, but we’ve gotten to the point where creators can ask: why do I need to do this?

In a world with no gatekeepers (anyone can upload anything and reach anyone), what value are these institutions providing?

This question is somewhat rhetorical because the answer is often clear: money, access, infrastructure. Still, I’m not sure even those things hold as much weight for creators as they once did.