Extreme heat Sunday caused the artificial turf at Nissan Stadium in Nashville to reach 157 degrees Fahrenheit during the NFL matchup between the host Tennessee Titans and the Philadelphia Eagles.

That’s hot enough to melt the cleats on the players’ feet, with Eagles center Cam Jurgens reportedly changing his cleats twice due to melting and other players needing to have their cleats doused with cool water.

This is potentially one of the final times the Nashville-based Titans will experience extreme temperatures at home as their new indoor Nissan Stadium is expected to open in 2027, but artificial turf is a major concern for many athletic fields exposed to extreme heat.

157 degrees into context

Extreme heat was baking the Tennessee Valley this weekend as the daily high temperature record was broken on Saturday in Nashville (100 degrees) and the high reached 98 degrees on Sunday with a heat index reaching 105 degrees at game time.

But the relentless sun heated up the field of Nissan Stadium far past the air temperature, which was already hot enough to warrant a heat advisory from the National Weather Service.

(MORE: Extreme heat: safety tips, heat wave news & more)

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Synthetic grass and turf is significantly more dangerous in extreme heat than natural grass, as the surface of synthetic turf can get up to 15 to 60 degrees hotter in the sun than its natural counterpart.

Human skin can be burned and damaged when exposed to surfaces that are 111 degrees Fahrenheit, and second degree burns can happen with only three to five seconds of direct contact with surfaces at 140 degrees.

You can literally cook an egg when the surface reaches 158 degrees, and the field was measuring in at 157.

This means the field was well and above hot enough to burn anyone who touched it with exposed skin.

But even if the players did not touch the field with their bare skin, the extreme temperatures can heat up their cleats from the outside, burning their feet. 

A football field provides no relief from the brutal temperatures, with heat radiating from every direction and the turf beneath their feet acting like a hot plate.

(MORE: Top 10 NFL weather games of all time)

Why artificial turf is so astronomically hot

Most people who grew up in areas with warm summers are familiar with the burns that can come from a metal slide that’s been sitting in the sun all day and the shimmer of heat haze radiating off of the blacktop, but the synthetic grass is a threat you may not know about if you haven’t experienced it yourself.

The temperature difference between real and synthetic grass starts with the fact that artificial fields absorb more heat from the sun than natural fields, setting off the climbing temperatures.

Natural fields also have a built-in cooling mechanism that synthetic turf lacks: evaporation, which cools the air directly above the field’s surface and regulates the temperature.

Sara Tonks is a content meteorologist with weather.com and has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Georgia Tech in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, along with a master’s degree from Unity Environmental University in Marine Science.