My personal instinct, even though it's probably not backed up by empirical data, is that grass fields are better than artificial turf of any kind. If it's all smooth and properly maintained, with the right firmness. Not just because of the nature of the surface itself, but more like the natural exertion of how to safely plant your feet on grass than on this eerie pseudo-grass, which is very similar to grass, and can be optimized to spec, but it's not quite identical, and it confuses the part of your mind that walks for you, and performs totally unconscious physical actions.
But football is a sport of super violent physical movement, not just tackling and hard contact in vulnerable, awkward positions. But just things like making hard, quick cuts at full speed. And these guys are all heavy, even if they're muscular and lean they're still heavy. And they make the cuts super suddenly, and their mind/body mechanisms don't react quickly enough, for the muscles to properly brace for a totally explosive as well as sudden, abrupt cutback. It's the most awesome sport in the world it a lot of ways. But it pushes the body to the limit. And all too frequently beyond.
