SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- For a first training camp practice, the Levi's Stadium grass again took center stage. And not in a good way.
Clumps of sod flew through the air during individual drills, particularly where the defensive backs and receivers worked near the sidelines, and the San Francisco 49ers, scheduled to hold their first eight camp practices in the stadium, may move to the facility next door for Sunday's 4:15 p.m. practice.
"I expect [we'll practice in Levi's Stadium]," 49ers coach Jim Tomsula said, "but we will reserve our right to move.
"We're not going to put them at risk. We probably have to re-think how [and where] we do individual drills."
Receiver Jerome Simpson seemed especially tweaked during a drill when he lost his footing and almost went down after catching a pass with a big chunk of grass flying out from beneath his foot.
Tomsula, who pushed down several divots along with players and assistants throughout the two-plus hour practice, said the middle of the field was fine and that the grass would be worked on overnight to make sure it would be suitable for practice Sunday.
It is important to note that a high school football all-star game was played just before the 49ers practiced, which would have loosened the sod.
Super Bowl 50 will be held here and earlier this offseason vice president of stadium operations security Jim Mercurio told reporters the field, which last week played host to a Barcelona-Manchested United soccer match, could be replaced as many as six or seven times before the Super Bowl.
Two Taylor Swift concerts will be held at Levi's Stadium on Aug. 14-15.
"The number of large-scale events has kind of put us into a planning stage where we have to decide and determine how we're going to attack it," said Mercurio, who acknowledged at the time a synthetic turf could be considered for installation after the Super Bowl.
"Sometimes you don't know if it's going to be a full replacement [or] we don't know if it's going to be a partial replacement."
Last August, then-coach Jim Harbaugh pulled the team off the field in the middle of a public practice when the grass was coming up and he deemed the conditions unsafe. The $1.3 billion state-of-the-art stadium's field was re-sodded three times last season.
