George Kittle continues to make the case for grass fields over turf

George Kittle has been one of the NFL's loudest voices on player safety and turf , and he laid out his full argument on "Chris Simms Unbuttoned" ahead of the San Francisco 49ers ' training camp.

"What I've learned from turf is that I am significantly more sore the day after," Kittle said.

"Your feet, your ankles, your knees, your hips everything's just more sore, and it takes you a couple more days to bounce back." On grass, he said, the soreness from contact is still there, but the joint stiffness isn't.

"You don't have that ankle stiffness, those knees, the hips.

I've been feeling that since I was a rookie." Kittle said the sentiment is nearly universal among the players he's talked to: "I would say 90-plus percent of players that I talk to are like, 'Oh, dude, give me grass every single day of the week.'" Kittle isn't alone.

Several other notable NFL players have publicly pushed for grass at NFL stadiums, especially after the World Cup mandated NFL stadiums use grass for soccer matches this summer.

The 49ers star pointed to the league's financial priorities over player safety as why the change hasn't happened.

"You're building all these new stadiums with all this beautiful technology $100 million stadiums.

Like, why can't you just put in a way to use grass?" Kittle said.

"At the core of it, you're making most of your money off of players playing on your grass.

So let's make a good surface." Short of a full switch to grass, Kittle said he'd settle for consistency across turf fields.

"Every turf field I play on is different.

I go to New England, it's different than Seattle.

Seattle's different than Cincinnati," he said.

"Can we at least just have one turf, so you know what you're getting yourself into when you play on a turf field?" Kittle connected the issue directly to injuries, referencing his own ankle injury the week before he tore his Achilles.

"Injuries do happen, but they happen less on the grass field," he said, adding that head injuries are a concern too: "If you get a concussion on the turf, you see guys' heads just go bounce on it like a basketball.

You see that significantly less on a grass field." Whether or not teams listen remains to be seen.

But with the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations not happening until 2031, players will have to make do with these arguments before they see any real progress.

This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: George Kittle continues to make the case for grass fields over turf.