Broncos To Install New Field At Mile High For Second Half Of Season

The Denver Broncos have announced that they’ll be replacing their entire playing surface at Mile High Stadium, according to a report from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. 

The move is occurred with four regular-season games played and four more to go, and according to Florio it’s part of a proactive effort provide a high-quality playing surface. 

This is very much in line with how the Broncos typically do business. They spent huge amounts of money to upgrade their training facility and locker room, with the combination debuting this summer. 

Broncos players were very impressed, and ownership will undoubtedly reap another benefit when the next round of rating stories emerge about how players grade this sort of thing. 

There were no complaints about the previous field, but it is interesting to note that it’s happening right after a narrow win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday in which footing was an occasional issue. 

There was some light rain as the game went on, and that may have been the basic issue, but coach Sean Payton tends to be very demanding with this sort of thing when it affects what happens during games. 

Florio has been pounding the table about this issue since the World Cup games occurred at multiple NFL stadiums this summer. Many of the fields had to be ripped out to meet World Cup standards, and after those games were over some teams went back to their cheaper artificial turn fields, which cost less but represent a player safety issue, per Florio. 

That won’t be happening in Denver. The Broncos represent the big game in town with Payton leading the team into Super Bowl contention, and Greg Penner’s ownership group is seriously committed to player safety. 

Part of this effort is also based on the Broncos’ efforts to build a new stadium, which have been mostly successful with some occasional setbacks. The stadium will be built at the Burnham Yards site in Denver, and the Broncos have ambitious plans to build a multi-use commercial area around the stadium that would be very lucrative. 

This sort of thing is rarely easy to do, and that’s definitely the case in Denver. Various municipal authorities and groups are staking their claims to be part of the effort, and there’s still a lot of wrangling and negotiating to be done with that part of effort. It’s all part of the push to get to the Super Bowl, and Penner is all in on backing it to the hilt.