Jalen Hurts: Field was “definitely a challenge” on Friday night

Eagles running back Saquon Barkley’s three touchdowns and Packers quarterback Jordan Love’s short-term injury made headlines in the Eagles’ win on Friday night, but another headline-grabbing topic at the first NFL game in Brazil was the condition of the field.

Players from both teams had trouble staying on the turf at the Corinthians Arena in Sao Paolo. Barkley slipped and lost five yards on his first run as an Eagle, and Packers safety Xavier McKinney, Barkley’s former teammate on the Giants, said “there were times when I slipped, too.” Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert compared the field to the slippery surface in Arizona at Super Bowl LVII, and quarterback Jalen Hurts also commented on the difficulties.

“I mean, you all saw that it was somehow difficult to grasp“, Hurts said, via Tim McManus of ESPN.com. “It’s definitely a challenge on that field. It’s not the type of field we normally play on. We’ve had a field like that before. They had to play on it, too. I’m just glad that as a team we found a way to deal with it and overcome it.”

The NFL is planning more international games in the future and the quality of the fields it uses will likely come under closer scrutiny following Friday’s events.