Goodell isn't listening to 49ers' complaints
Commissioner on SF's field issues — just deal with it
Amid his hour of expert political sidestepping that the NFL called a press conference on Monday, league Commissioner Roger Goodell had a singular moment of offscript honesty.
He told the 49ers, who have raised complaints through the media regarding the unsuitability of the team's practice field at UNLV, to suck it up and deal with it.
In so many words, of course.
The 49ers' complaint, as first published by CBS Sports on Monday, is that the new grass turf, laid over the typical artificial surface at the Fertitta Football Complex, is unseemly — as in you can see the seams in the grass.
It's also alleged to be far softer than the natural surface on which the Niners are used to practicing. Apparently, there are exact scales for that sort of thing.
The Chiefs, meanwhile, have access to not only established grass fields at the Raiders' practice facility in Henderson, but also an indoor field. The Niners have no such option to escape the rain, which drenched Las Vegas on Monday.
This game might be a neutral site contest, but it doesn't seem as if the 49ers are receiving the same pre-game consideration as their opponent.
It's a big, wet, soggy mess — the kind of story that puts a damper on the league's selfcongratulatory celebration.
But Goodell didn't want to hear about it.
“We had 23 experts out there. We had the union out there, all of them. It's a very playable surface. It's softer than what they practiced on, but that happens,” Goodell said. “It's well within all of our testing. And this is something