The NFL provides plenty of heat for the players and coaches every week. That’s the nature of playing football at the highest level. But the athletes and coaches don’t expect physical heat like what the Philadelphia Eagles experienced against the Tennessee Titans in Week 2.
According to the FOX Sports broadcast of the game, temperatures on the turf field at Nissan Stadium in Nashville on Sunday reached as high as 157 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat was so bad, players dealt with melted cleats, and Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni needed an IV.
Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata expressed that the game will become an example of why the league has to move away from turf fields.
“I’ve never thought about how hot a stadium can be if it’s turf. [The heat] just sits there and bounces up into you,” Mailata said, via ESPN’s Tim McManus. “We’ve got to bring it up. This is why we want all grass fields, to create a standard of play in the league where we’re not putting players in dangerous positions if we don’t have to.”
While speaking to reporters after the game, offensive lineman Cam Jurgens said his feet were “burning, still hurting” long after leaving the playing surface. Jurgens added that he went through multiple pairs of cleats because his shoes were melting.
“Halftime was like a NASCAR pit crew helping me get ready for the second half,” Jurgens said. “That turf was just radiating.”
“It was hot as [expletive],” Sirianni added in his postgame press conference. “I didn’t play a snap and I had to get an IV. I so appreciate how much the guys prepared. So appreciate how much they fought through because it wasn’t easy.”
Eagles’ Jordan Mailata Calls for Change With Playing Surface After Dangerous Conditions in Nashville
Dealing with conditions is part of playing football outside. Typically, the sport lends itself to teams needing to overcome wet or cold climates. On Sunday in Tennessee, it was basically the opposite.
Besides having a dome stadium, there wasn’t anything the NFL could have done to stop the heat in Nashville on Sunday. But having a grass field instead of turf could have helped significantly.
“The temperature in Nashville for Sunday’s kickoff at noon local time was 95 degrees, with a heat index of around 105. A heat dome had settled over the area in recent weeks, with high pressure in the atmosphere pushing heat toward the surface and trapping it there,” wrote McManus.
That situation created one of the most memorable extreme heat conditions for an NFL game in recent memory.
“Mailata said he twice rolled his ankles in Sunday’s contest and wondered if it could be the result of his shoes bending because the plastic in the bottom of his cleats got soft,” wrote McManus.
“Television cameras showed a member of the Titans having his cleats sprayed with water to cool them off.”
This was the second straight home game on a Sunday afternoon for the Titans to open the 2026 season. The team dealt with heat conditions in the season opener versus the New York Jets as well.
Titans safety Amani Hooker told ESPN his midsoles “melted completely off” against the Jets because of the heat.
How Will NFL Fix Heat Issues in Nashville?
It will be interesting to see what the NFL might do about this situation going forward. It was borderline not safe to play in Nashville on Sunday.
Perhaps the league should be more careful scheduling September afternoon games in hot climates. The Titans aren’t really a team the league wants to showcase in primetime, but playing at night Sunday would have probably been much safer.
Or, the NFL can still schedule September kickoffs in Nashville for the afternoon but be more proactive in changing the start time when extreme heat occurs. The league has done that in the past for extreme cold weather or snow games.
At least in Nashville, though, the league won’t have to deal with this issue much longer. The Titans are building a new dome stadium that will surely be much cooler than Nissan Stadium was Sunday.
Eagles Sound Off on Dangerous, ‘Burning’ Conditions in Titans Game