🩼 What Does “Turf Toe” Actually Mean?

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I might have beef with college football’s No. 1 WR, seriously.

See, last week I wrote about Jeremiah Smith’s wise decision to take out a $160,000/year Permanent Total Disability Insurance Policy (PTD), which pays out up to $20 million if he suffers a career-ending injury on or off the field and doesn’t make it to the NFL.

However, Jeremiah seemed to take issue with this story over on Instagram and TikTok, commenting, “Where you getting this from?🤣🤣🤣”

Now, as I laid out in the original story (and told Jeremiah), I credit all of these figures to a CBS Sports article from earlier this year. So I’m not sure if the numbers from the original report are wrong, if no such policy exists for Jeremiah, or if he’s just impressed that someone could even source this info in the first place.

Either way, I still think it’s a genius move on his part.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: What Does “Turf Toe” Actually Mean?

📉 Biggest Loser: Donald Trump Hates the NFL’s New Kick-Off, But What Does the Data Say?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: The Genius Behind the NFL’s Best-Designed Stadium

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🗞 The Big Story

What the heck does “turf toe” actually mean? Because even though it doesn’t sound any more serious than a rash, it’s actually one of the most severe injuries in the NFL that no one seems to know anything about.

Let’s break it down.

AstroTurf: In the late 1960s, the NFL saw the introduction of artificial turf in places like Houston and Philadelphia. Back then, this “AstroTurf” style was basically a thin layer of carpet laid over literal concrete, which meant it was far less forgiving than natural grass. And while players started complaining about the types of serious, season-ending injuries this new playing surface caused – like ACL tears and increased concussions – there was one injury on the rise that didn’t get as much attention.

The term “turf toe” was first coined by two researchers at the University of West Virginia in 1976 when they noticed the alarming increase of a new type of injury, primarily in athletes who played on artificial turf fields, in which their cleats would get stuck in the hard turf, causing a hyperextension in the ligament that connects their big toe to the rest of their foot.

And while this still may sound fairly mild, it’s actually a lot more serious than the name lets on.

Behind Turf Toe: If you think about it, when an athlete is running, their big toe is the last part of their body to leave the ground, but if it gets caught in the turf, then all of an athlete’s body weight is put onto that one toe.

Not to mention, when a professional athlete is moving on the field, they could be putting up to 8x their body weight in force onto their ligaments, which is the equivalent of about 2,000 pounds of weight being put onto a single toe.

Now, since turf toe is technically an injury to a ligament, it’s graded on a 1-3 scale. With a Grade 1 injury being a mild strain that will heal after three to four weeks of rest and rehab, and a Grade 3 injury being a total tear that requires surgical repair, otherwise the athlete could suffer from permanent arthritis, which could threaten their career or worse, their ability to ever walk normally again.

The Solution: However, the part of this deep-dive that surprised me the most is the fact that we actually know how to reduce turf injuries, which up to 45% of NFL players have suffered throughout their career, but owners are just too cheap to do anything about it.

Because after looking at the 40-year history of the injury, researchers found that 83% of all turf toe injuries occur on artificial turf fields; however, even with the data staring them directly in the face, over half of the league still has to play their games on fake grass because it’s “better for business.”

At least now you know why Joe Burrow will be out for the next three months.

📉 Biggest Loser

The NFL’s new kickoff is “bad for America,” but that’s not coming from me – that’s according to the President of the United States, but does he have a point?

Trump on NFL’s New Rule: Earlier this week, Donald Trump posted about how the NFL needed to get rid of “that ridiculous looking new Kickoff Rule,” calling it “at least as dangerous as the 'normal kickoff'” and saying that “‘Sissy’ football is bad for America and bad for the NFL!”

And even though thousands of people seem to agree with him, I wanted to know what the data actually says.

A Brief History of Kick-Offs: In 2009, NFL kick-offs were being returned at an 81% rate, according to Sportico.

However, even after moving the kicker back five yards in 2011 and the touchback yardage up from the 20 to the 25-yard line in 2015, the percentage of returns continued to plummet, to the point that in 2023, only 22% of kickoffs were being returned.

But that wasn’t even the NFL’s biggest problem.

Because even when kickoffs were returned, they proved to be one of the most dangerous plays in football, historically resulting in injury rates that were 2-4x higher than any other play, according to the league.

That’s why, after seeing the success of the XFL’s new kickoff rule in 2020, which was pioneered by Stanford alumni Sam Schwartzstein and resulted in a 92% return rate and reduced injuries, the NFL decided to implement what they called the ‘Dynamic KickOff’ in 2024.

But it didn’t work.

Success of the New Rule: See, when NFL owners voted on whether or not to implement this new kickoff rule in 2024, they rejected the original proposal, which called for touchbacks to be spotted at the 35-yard line and instead decided to have a touchback be brought out to the 30.

However, this compromise only resulted in a slight uptick in return rate, from 22% in 2023 to 33% in 2024.

So this past offseason, the owners got back together and decided to move touchbacks back up to the 35-yard line… and it’s working.

In fact, through the first two weeks of the season, nearly 77% of kickoffs have been returned, which is the highest the league has seen since 2010, but that’s not even the best part.

Because not only are returns up, but injuries on the new kickoff are down, with concussion rates specifically dropping 43% since the adoption of this new rule.

But honestly, being wrong about the dynamic kickoff isn’t even Trump’s worst NFL take of the season.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This is the best-designed stadium in the NFL, but not for the reason you might think.

Stadiums in Large Parking Lots: I recently saw a picture of the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium during the middle of the week and thought to myself:

Why does virtually every NFL stadium look like this?

Sure, during game day, this is some of the best tailgating in the country, but for over 300 days a year, this sea of concrete, which is the size of lower Manhattan, just sits empty — but Arrowhead isn’t unique.

In fact, the average NFL stadium is surrounded by as many as 25,000 parking spots, which is a natural consequence of the fact that less than half of all NFL stadiums are actually located in the downtown areas of the cities they’re named after.

But what if there was a better way to design these stadiums?

A Different Approach: That was the exact question the city of Minneapolis asked when the roof of the Metrodome collapsed in 2011 and the Minnesota Vikings started exploring options for a new stadium.

See, at the time, more and more NFL teams were building their stadiums out in the suburbs, and the Vikings initially appeared like they were going to be no different, as the team had its sights set on building a $1.1 billion retractable-roof stadium 10 miles north of downtown Minneapolis in the suburbs.

However, after pressure from the local government, the team agreed to build their new 66,000-seat stadium downtown, which then posed the question:

Where are all those people going to park?

Fortunately, Minneapolis officials had planned for that exact issue.

See, instead of doing what seemingly every other NFL team does and surrounding their stadium in parking, Minneapolis decided to rely heavily on public transit to get people to and from games.

Public Transit Success: In fact, 13,700 people took the city’s light rail to the first-ever game at U.S. Bank Stadium in 2016, which was about 20% of all fans. And that’s not even including the 20 bus routes that provide direct access to the stadium as well.

And this transit-first approach has not only helped limit the need for surface parking, but it also allows for more room for things like:

• Apartments

• Restaurants

• Office buildings

Which, in turn, drives much more tax revenue for a city as compared to a parking lot that just sits empty for 90% of the year.

Talk about a no-brainer.

⏱️ In Other News

• The Brown’s new uniforms, presented by Dude Wipes (seriously)

• I got caught red-handed

• Major League Table Tennis is… booming?

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

Here’s the most absurd NFL stat I’ve seen all year.