Giants Captain Calls Gillette Turf ‘Filthy’ After Kicker’s Foot Vanishes Into the Surface on Critical Attempt

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In the visitors’ locker room beneath Gillette Stadium, the frustration spilled out in a single, unfiltered sentence that instantly became the night’s defining sound bite. “We can’t compete effectively on that filthy pitch,” Giants captain Devin Singletary said, his voice still carrying the echo of cleats on concrete. He was not talking about the Patriots’ defense. He was talking about the FieldTurf itself — the same synthetic surface that, minutes earlier, had swallowed kicker Younghoe Koo’s plant foot like quicksand and turned a routine field-goal attempt into one of the strangest misfires ever broadcast.

The play unfolded late in the third quarter with the Giants desperately trying to claw back into striking distance. Koo, one of the league’s most accurate kickers over the past half-decade, lined up for what appeared to be a manageable try. His approach looked textbook — until his left foot stabbed the turf six inches behind the ball and simply never came up. The swing thudded harmlessly into the ground; the ball never left the tee. Cameras caught the divot in high definition, a small crater that looked freshly gouged by some invisible force.

X ignited within seconds.

Younghoe Koo with the faulty kick attempt 😅

(via @nfl) pic.twitter.com/YTOy6yeFxj

— ESPN (@espn) December 2, 2025

“That might be the worst field-goal attempt I’ve ever seen. Koo literally kicked the ground a foot behind the ball,” posted @PFF with an attached clip that has already crossed two million views. “Never seen a kicker stub his toe so bad the ball doesn’t move. Gillette turf claims another victim,” wrote Barstool Sports’ account, layering the video with a sad trombone. “His plant foot just disappeared,” marveled ESPN’s Matt Bowen. “That surface is unplayable tonight.”

The footage spread like wildfire: slow-motion replays from the end-zone angle, still frames of Koo’s cleat buried to the ankle, side-by-side comparisons with perfectly smooth grass fields elsewhere. #GilletteTurf began trending in the Northeast before the next commercial break.

Singletary, who has played on every surface the NFL offers, did not hold back when asked about the incident. “It’s not an excuse — it’s a fact,” he told reporters clustered around his locker. “You can’t ask players to perform at this level when the field is tearing up like that. It’s filthy. It’s dangerous. We’re out there slipping on kickoffs, slipping on routes, and then that happens? Come on.”

He was not alone. Giants long snapper Casey Kreiter posted a close-up photo of the divot on his Instagram story with the caption, “Explain this one.” Wide receiver Darius Slayton, who had slipped earlier on a deep crossing route, quote-tweeted a video of Koo’s miss with three trash-can emojis and the words “Same spot I went down.”

Even neutral observers piled on. NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger broke down the play frame by frame on his popular “Baldy’s Breakdowns” account: “Watch the plant foot. It literally gets sucked into the turf. That’s not technique. That’s the field.”

The criticism is hardly new. The NFL Players Association has ranked Gillette’s surface among the league’s worst in each of the past three annual surveys, and the union’s executive director, Lloyd Howell Jr., has repeatedly called for a full conversion to natural grass. Yet the Patriots, like roughly half the league’s teams, continue to play on artificial turf, citing weather durability and multi-use scheduling at a stadium that also hosts soccer and concerts.

Inside the home locker room, Patriots coach Mike Vrabel offered a terse response when asked about the visiting team’s complaints: “We play on it. They play on it. It’s the same for everybody.” But the viral images told a different story — one of a field that appeared chewed up and inconsistent under the Monday night lights.

For the Giants, a franchise already navigating a turbulent season marked by injuries and upheaval, the moment crystallized a broader sense of helplessness. As players filed onto the team buses late Monday, phones still buzzing with notifications of the latest slow-motion replays, one veteran was overheard muttering, “We didn’t just lose tonight. The turf beat us.”

Whether the league finally listens remains an open question. But on a cold December night in Foxborough, the playing surface itself became the antagonist — and the internet, as it so often does, made sure no one would forget it.