Ummm, no it isn't. There are still seams, because that's how field turf works (at least the kind that you can remove and reinstall), but it's not on trays. Here are some pics of them uninstalling the college field.
Curious to see how this comes together. Typical manufacturing process for a full field is 5-7 days and installation is 2 weeks. A couple of manufacturers can get it done pretty quickly but I'd be concerned about quality...especially in the installation. Football fields have a lot of details that can be easily screwed up when installers are in a rush. I'd expect whomever has the order in hand is putting together a crew to work 24 hours a day once the field is delivered if they intend to play on it for Week 3. I'll have to reach out to a few friends to see what the field is going to be.
15' wide panels that go the width of the playing field. Panels for the sidlelines go in the other direction. So, yes, there are seams all over the freaking place (you can't put the hash marks in during the manufacturing process...they are cut in and glued during installation...same for logos and letters if they aren't painting them in). Difference is, they are likely glued together using a very high strength glue or sewn together. Either works well and, as long as the installation crew knows what they're doing, should be pretty strong. There is also the option to have velcro seams for easy installation and removal (same as what ATT Stadium has).
Hoyer benched, tray system getting the boot for synthetic. What else have we asking for? Looks like they are granting wishes this week.
I read somewhere else (don't remember, can't find it) the fieldturf at NRG was on a tray system, that's why I commented as such. Edit: Found it; Wiki's entry for NRG stadium: [rquoter]NRG Stadium employs two different playing surfaces; a natural grass field is used for professional football games while an artificial surface, AstroTurf GameDay Grass, is used for college and high school games. Both surfaces are laid out on interlocking trays.[/rquoter] Obviously Wiki's entry is incorrect.
Well not quite, they said they are switching to turf for the rest of the season then trying to find a better tray system for next season.
I think a lot of Smith's comments were damage control and trying to protect the Texans in the Hartmann lawsuit. NFL dictates that the field is so bad that we have to change it. This looks bad for the lawsuit so the Texans come up with the story about how the field was always good in the past and just wasn't up to it's usually high standards this year. And of course, if that's the case, then they shouldn't give up on grass completely when it's worked well for the last 13 years, so they say they'll continue to look for solutions that will let them return to the grass tray system. I don't expect any of that to actually happen. If this was dictated by the NFL, they're not going back to the trays. I think it's just the Texans trying to cover their own butts and not admit that the grass had been a problem for a long time and they'd just refused to do anything about it.
I think the confusion is that there will still be trays under the turf, but the turf is laid out over the trays rather than fitting into each one so you don't have the seams
So what's so hard about maintaining one whole natural field? Why do they need a tray system? Installing a sprinkler system, in addition to being able to open the roof for sunlight, seem to make it feasible. I'm sure they could easily devise a platform to place on top of the field for other events/surface options? Seems like standard stuff.
That platform or whatever would likely kill the grass. Honestly they just need to go full on grass surface and abandon the idea of using NRG for other non football events. There's nothing that can be done at NRG that can't be done in a different venue in Houston. If we wanted to have NRG be the Astrodome, we'd have just upgraded the Astrodome.
Kind of a bizarre quote here. First he says, despite teams complaining about it, the field is just fine. Then he goes on to say it's even more uneven than normal, implying that it's always been uneven. LOL.
Last season the Texas were 0-3 on artificial turf. 9-4 on real grass.* LINK Huge misstep yet again by Texans management. Shameful. *Aforementioned stats were taken at face value with no further analysis or logic used.
