Conditions this week at Heinz Field

[mingorama]

I'm just curious as to what people think about taking the Under (45) in the PIT/CIN game this week. Yesterday afternoon, the field was "still chewed up, with several long sideline-to-sideline strips of brown turf caused when rain water gushed through the seams of the protective tarps laid atop the field", according to the Canadian Press. I have no idea if another few days will make the field more playable or not --- but if it's anything remotely close to Monday, the under looks very tempting.

[MicroBob]

That's a reasonable point.
They seemed borderline incompetent trying to get that new turf in place at exactly the wrong time of the year or something.

I know nothing about grounds-crew work but that field was noticeably worse than almost any field ever. I mean, a high-school field that had taken that much rain would probably hold-up better. PIT's would have also if they didn't lay down that new turf on top of the old one creating some super-weird vacuum-sponge sucking situation.

Do they have enough time to fix this?
I guess if the weather is dry and cool and sunny that might help the healing process signficantly.

[mingorama]

That punt that stuck halfway into the turf really showed how crummy the conditions were. I wonder how many of the grounds crew called friends to place under bets for Monday Night? As of right now, forecast is for cool weather (low 40's), but with showers on Thursday and Sunday. I would love to have a contact in the Heinz Field Ground Crew.....

[MicroBob]

The punt was one thing.
But a lot of the other close-ups of the feet and shots of coaches replacing giant divots during time-outs said a lot more imo.

In the post-game conference Ben and others were talking about how the o-linemen would be repairing the ground as they got to the line of scrimmage just to try to get better footing.

Every player I heard said they were the worst field-conditions they had ever played in. That's why I feel confident in saying that it was actualy worse than a beat-up high-school field with the sponge-like qualities and sticking your hand in and it goes all the way down, etc.
These guys have all played on horrible fields before but this seemed to be significantly worse BECAUSE they had tried to fix it by putting new turf on top of the old turf.

I think they're best chance would be to remove the new turf entirely and play on the original surfance if it might be a bit more solid. Even if it's really muddy and crappy looking I think they would do better on hard mud then on that quicksand-sponge type surface they were trying to muddle through last time.
It's not like they can do any worse. That game was ridiculous.

[centris]

Last week there was a Pitt NCAA football game there on the Saturday before which could have made things worse. This coming week Pitt is away. I know that sometimes they play State High school football championship games there, but I don't see any for this coming Friday.

[Performify]

There is already an official thread for this game. This discussion should go there.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...umber=13133517

-P