A heatwave in Nashville paired with the Nissan Stadium turf created one of the most astonishing events to occur on a football field, Sunday — as the Philadelphia Eagles and Tennessee Titans quite literally had their cleats melting while playing in Week 2.

With air temperatures over 95 degrees at kickoff it created a scenario where the turn itself was measured at 157 degrees — enough to melt the mid-sole of cleats, which led the Eagles to spraying water on players’ feet in an effort to keep the integrity of their footwear.

Not only did players see their cleats physically melting on the field, but the heat caused the composition of the cleats to change, with Jordan Mailata saying that he rolled his ankle twice on Sunday — and believed it could have been caused by the plastic of his cleats becoming soft due to the heat.

Conditions were so extreme that Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni got an IV at halftime to prevent dehydration, which came from just standing on the surface for 90 minutes. Players struggled to keep cool, and it’s raising more questions about player safety due to weather-related events, especially as it pertains to playing surfaces.

Artificial turf of all kinds trap heat, but field turf is particularly egregious. Natural grass sheds heat through evaporative cooling, but both the turf itself and the rubber substrate absorb heat energy and have no way of getting rid of it. It’s for this reason the field temperature was 60 degrees higher than air temp on Sunday, which is considered normal for the playing surface.

Mailata, the Eagles player representative to the NFLPA, told ESPN that this is part of the reason the union is pushing for teams to move to grass surfaces league-wide.

“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. “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.”

Something had to change long-term. The idea that NFL athletes are being pressured into playing with melted cleats is unacceptable. Either the field surface needs to change to make things cooler, or the league needs to force teams to add cooling technology under their playing surfaces so this doesn’t happen.