The Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs had one of the most entertaining Super Bowl matchups in recent memory. However, one glaring issue was the poor field conditions, which seemed to play a real impact on the game.
A reason for the field issues was revealed on Tuesday, which has many NFL fans extremely upset.
Ex-NFL groundskeeper George Toma discussed the issues at Super Bowl LVII with ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss and did not mince words about his frustration with the NFL. He proceeded to throw Ed Mangan, the NFL field director, under the bus for overwatering the field, using some colorful language to describe Mangan’s mistakes.
“So, what he does,” Toma said referring to Mangan. “He waters the **** out of it and puts it right into the stadium and that’s it. Never sees sunlight again. He can’t do that.”
The field issues had previously been blamed on rehearsals for Rihanna’s Halftime Show, but it turns out that also may be part of Mangan’s mistake. Toma detailed that a tarp was laid over the field to protect it from the rehearsals for the pregame, which led to the field decaying and releasing a “rotten smell”.
Toma even detailed that these frustrations have led to this being his final Super Bowl, saying that he is done with the NFL after the crucial mistakes.
“Me and the league are finished,” Toma added. “They can’t tell me what to do anymore. We’re done.”
It certainly appears that Toma didn’t get the final say on handling the field, which he sees as the reason for the field issues. Regardless, many around the NFL world cannot believe that the league has such incompetence for one of the biggest sporting events in the world.
Hopefully this revelation will help the league make sure that these mistakes don’t happen again in future Super Bowls.
[ESPN.com]
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.