Monday Night Football's stage is going to be a little bit less than ideal.
When the Chicago Bears host the Minnesota Vikings to cap off Week 1, the turf at Soldier Field is going to look a bit too much like a dried-out, torn-up grass lawn.
Look at this video from earlier on Monday:
A look at the turf of @SoldierField from the @vikings booth pic.twitter.com/GhQHjMmisU
— Chris Hawkey (@Chris_Hawkey) September 8, 2025
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Part of the problem: The Chicago Park District owns Soldier Field, which limits the Bears' ability to do upkeep that they'd have if they owned it themselves.
But regardless of the origin of the issue, it's not good.
There's the simple fact that the NFL, the richest sports league we've got, deserves to have its games played on the most pristine of surfaces.
And then beyond that, there are the injury implications of shaky ground.
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The Vikings have J.J. McCarthy coming off a 2024 knee injury to make his first-ever NFL start at QB. Don't you think they'd like to have him playing on a sharper surface?
What about players who are on the injury report this week? Can you risk them on this ground?
Everyone just has to cross their fingers and hope players make it through the game in one piece.
But it's far, far, far from an ideal situation.
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