Eagles and Chiefs players both agreed that the Super Bowl's $800,000 turf was terrible: 'It was like playing on a water park'

• Players on both the Eagles and Chiefs called out the turf conditions at Super Bowl LVII.
• "It was like playing on a water park," said Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata.

PHOENIX — When the Eagles and Chiefs concluded Super Bowl LVII, there was one thing both sides could agree on: That field was brutal.

Throughout the game, star players on both teams struggled to keep their feet beneath them, prompting several mid-game cleat swaps from players looking to find a way to make sharp moves against the untrustworthy turf.

Heading into the game, the field came highly touted by legendary groundskeeper George Toma, better known as "The Sodfather." Toma, 94, has been looking over the grass at every Super Bowl since the beginning and said that the field in Arizona was the second-best they've ever had for the big game.

That supposedly good turf came at the cost of $800,000, he estimated, and who knows how many man-hours in construction and maintenance. Also, every day since it was installed two weeks ago, the field was dragged out of the stadium and into the direct sunlight of the desert sun. It is quite an operation.

But all that work resulted in a pretty poor final product, according to the guys that played on it.

"I'm not going to lie, it was the worst field that I've ever played on," said Eagles defender Haason Reddick after the game on Sunday, per Zach Berman of The Athletic. "It was very disappointing. It's the NFL. You would think it would be better so we could get some better play, but it is what it is."

"I changed my cleats and right before the second half wore the different ones," said Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert. "The second half, you know, the field was tearing up a little bit but, you know, once again, we're playing on the same field as the Chiefs."

"It was terrible," Philadelphia offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said in the locker room. "I'm no grass expert. It was just slick. You couldn't anchor. You had to get your whole foot in the ground. If you try and use just your toe, it would slip right away. You saw the receivers. It was like a water park out there, and we're playing on grass."

Mailata said that during television timeouts, players on the Chiefs were also acknowledging the poor field conditions.

Indeed, some outspoken Chiefs players also shared their frustrations with the field.

"The field was kind of terrible," Kansas City defensive lineman Frank Clark said after the game. "We've had this problem in Arizona before. A lot of these stadiums try to do new tactics with the grass, they try to do new things. I've been playing football since I was seven. The best grass is grass that is naturally there.

"At the end of the day, it was the field that we were given."

"This is a game of adjustments, and we had like four dudes changing their cleats at halftime," Clark said. "Just try to figure it out. But bad field or not, you've got to play football."