49ers fear Mykel Williams tore his ACL, adding to MetLife Stadium's infamy for injuries

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – With little more than four minutes left in a game already well in hand, the San Francisco 49ers looked to close a win at MetLife Stadium with no new injuries to note. Then top pick Mykel Williams planted his foot in the turf.

Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan said the 49ers feared Williams tore the ACL in his right knee. Further tests Monday were expected to clarify the true severity of his injury. But it did not look good.

Williams pounded his helmet with both hands while lying flat on the same turf that ended the season of Giants star receiver Malik Nabers in Week 4. A rookie starter at defensive end, Williams managed to walk off the field under his own power, albeit with a slight limp. He appeared visibly frustrated on his way to the locker room before the game officially concluded.

While it was unclear the extent to which the turf at MetLife caused Williams’ injury, which he suffered in the midst of a quarterback hit, All-Pro tight end George Kittle questioned why the league has allowed such a variety of different artificial turf and natural grass fields.

The NFL has 30 stadiums, split evenly between turf and grass playing surfaces, but neither is streamlined. For example, MetLife Stadium manages a turf called the FieldTurf Core System, versus Hellas Matrix Turf for AT&T Stadium (Cowboys), A-Turf Titan 50 for Highmark Stadium (Bills), Xtreme Turf UBU Speed Series S5 for U.S. Bank Stadium, and so on.

“When someone’s field is the butt of a joke around all of social media constantly, on every NFL meme page, and everybody jokes about how bad it is, I feel like at that point, someone should just take a look at it,” Kittle said. “No NFL field should be the butt of a joke, ever. I feel like all fields should have a level of safety to it. I just don’t get like why there’s not a standard. You got to pick between one or two turfs. There shouldn’t be 12 different turfs and 12 different grass fields and then a couple (teams) have the same things.”

The last year the 49ers played at MetLife Stadium was 2020, when they lost defensive ends Nick Bosa and Solomon Thomas to season-ending ACL tears in Week 2. Running back Raheem Mostert suffered an MCL sprain and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo picked up a high ankle sprain in the same game.

In response to widespread criticism, the Giants installed what was believed to be an improved synthetic turf at MetLife in 2023 used at five other NFL stadiums.

Then a new point of criticism arose when MetLife adapted a real grass pitch for the Club Word Cup this past summer – as will also be the case for the men’s World Cup final next summer – before returning to turf for the NFL season.

“It’s not like basketball players play on a different hardwood,” Kittle said. “That’s all the same. Soccer players in Europe all play on really nice grass. So it’s just weird to me, but that’s really way above my pay grade. I don’t make the money to make those decisions. But I’d love to.”

Kittle was injured when the 49ers faced the Jets and Giants in back-to-back games at MetLife Stadium during the 2020 regular season.

But perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Trent Williams played a total of 127 snaps in those matchups. A native of Texas who regularly played on turf in high school, Williams said he noticed improvement in the MetLife turf from the “mushy” version the Niners played on in 2020.

“Obviously, grass is the best,” Williams said. “But I played here in this stadium a lot in my career. So I never really put too much into it.”

Eddy Money: Eddy Piñeiro is still perfect.

The 49ers kicker made field-goal attempts of 54 and 33 yards to improve to 19-for-19, including 6-for-6 from 50-plus yards, since he was signed after the regular-season opener.

Piñeiro’s 54-yarder was a screaming line drive that barely cleared the crossbar, but Kittle insisted he knew it was good coming off Piñeiro’s foot. And there was reason to have such confidence: Piñeiro was named the NFC Special Teams Player of the Month for October and he ranks third in NFL history in field-goal percentage.

Among his biggest fans: Kittle’s wife, Claire.

“My wife bought his jersey,” Kittle said. “She’s never bought a single other person’s jersey before. I mean, she has plenty of mine. But she doesn’t even have a (fullback Kyle Juszczyk) jersey. She just loves him. I think she got the jersey after the Rams game (in Week 5). She was just like, ‘He’s my favorite player.'”

Crucial catch: A week after rookie wide receiver Jordan Watkins dropped his first NFL target near the end of a loss at Houston, the fourth-round pick made the most of the only target he received Sunday.

On the 49ers’ first drive, Watkins had a 19-yard grab on 2nd-and-12 at the Giants’ 47-yard line during a 12-play, 68-yard touchdown march that tied the score at 7-7. Shanahan said Watkins’ grab, in which he wrestled a near-interception away from cornerback Deonte Banks, was vital after New York had scored a touchdown on its opening drive.

Their “first drive was a very rough one, and I thought it was such a big play Jordan Watkins made,” Shanahan said. “You know, we don’t make that completion there, sorry, you’re not getting it on (3rd-and-12). That was a huge down.”

Sea of red: There was plenty of red and gold among the crowd of 83,258 at MetLife, which wasn’t surprising since the 49ers have one of the strongest road followings in the NFL.

But the semi-takeover was a shock to Giants rookie QB Jaxson Dart, who was making his sixth career start, his third at home.

“That was interesting,” Dart said. “I’ve never played in a home game where I felt it was kind of lopsided in that department.”

This article originally published at 49ers fear Mykel Williams tore his ACL, adding to MetLife Stadium’s infamy for injuries.

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