Irish Greg 2.0 wrote:...is that they play on grass.
We all know how much of a difference that is for our team. We have not been good on grass. Like, terrible.
Last season on grass: loss at Los Angeles (scoring 3 points), tie at Arizona (scoring 6 points in 5 quarters), loss at Tampa Bay (scoring 5 points), loss at Green Bay (scoring 10 points, but 7 were in garbage time).
We did win in New England and Santa Clara on grass, although we barely squeaked by the 49ers.
This season on grass: loss at Green Bay (scoring 9 points).
We are just a different team on the real stuff.
I'm not ready to go as far as you have and assign the playing surface as a significant cause of our road woes. Here's some more facts to consider:
We play all of our home games on Field Turf, so our performance on the phony stuff tends to be skewed. I wouldn't argue that a major factor in our home performance is the playing surface, certainly not compared to the 12th man crowd, so I wouldn't necessarily attribute our road woes to not playing on it from time to time.
It's interesting that you brought up the Arizona game. Yes, we did play poorly in managing just a tie against the Cards last season in their house, but we played even worse on Field Turf in losing to them at home. Plus for three consecutive years before them, we absolutely destroyed them in their pasture while twice losing to them in our house on Field Turf during the same season.
Last year's Rams road game fit a pattern, and it had nothing to do with the playing surface: We don't match up well against them. I have a hard time ascribing our horrid road performance in one game to playing on a natural surface when we've played them poorly on the phony stuff, particularly on the Field Turf in St. Louis, for almost all of the past 5 years.
Last year's game in Santa Clara was a glorified preseason game anyway, so I wouldn't want to draw too many conclusions from it one way or another. Besides, we beat the Niners on their grass field in the previous two seasons when the games actually meant something.
So is the playing surface a factor? Maybe, depending on the opponent and the condition of that surface. IMO last season's tie game at Arizona was affected by the field conditions, although it's hard to say which team it favored. There were more divots in that contest than I've ever seen in any game...except those played in inclement weather. I think that Arizona over waters their grass during the hot summer. Root systems are best developed in the summer when the plant goes dormant and forces its roots to drive deeper in search of water. But when you continue to drench it, the plant stays active as it gets its water on the surface. It looks golf course green, but the plant is never stressed and forced to look for water, so the roots stay within a couple of inches of the surface.
Bottom line is that I would not assign as large a factor to playing on grass than I would to playing in the early time slot, which we won't be tomorrow. Nevertheless, I'm still picking us to lose. Hope I'm wrong.