Aaron Rodgers blames Raymond James Stadium grass for injury

Aaron Rodgers is blaming Raymond James Stadium's grass for his persistent calf injury, that contributed to his team losing the NFC Championship Game against the Seattle Seahawks.

"The calf was, in my opinion, due to the poor surface in Tampa," Rodgers said on ESPN Milwaukee. "Tampa is where I hurt my shoulder as well back in 2008, and I think that there needs to be looked at some more uniformity as far as the field conditions. I think there's a couple of surfaces that are more likely to create injury than prevent injury. There's some incredible surfaces in the NFL. There's some ones that I think need to be looked at. Tampa is one of them because of the amount of play, I think, that happens there.

"When you put down so much sod and it's very uneven and soft, I think it can lead to more injuries. I've played there three times and been hurt there, in my opinion directly related to the field, twice."

Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers won that game 20-3, but the Bucs were in it until the middle of the fourth quarter. Only their anemic offense prevented them from actually beating the Packers on that field.

Raymond James Stadium has a reputation as having an excellent playing surface, and given the climate it really should be. But we've seen sod flying around, especially in weekends after USF has played on the field as well. It's a fairly busy field compared to other NFL stadiums.

But then, keeping the field a little unplayable might actually help the Bucs given that they never seem to have a good offense.