• A closer look at Reliant turf

Bill Belichick's postgame news conferences are never convivial affairs, but his responses to questions Sunday, after the Texans rallied for 21 fourth-quarter points to beat his New England Patriots, seemed even more clipped and cryptic than usual.

Now we know why.

The coach was seething inside about the “terrible condition” of the Reliant Stadium turf, on which Patriots receiver Wes Welker had earlier suffered two torn knee ligaments without being hit. Welker, the NFL's leading receiver with 123 catches, will need reconstructive surgery. Belichick bit his tongue in Houston but has subsequently unloaded.

“For the level of play we have in the National Football League, I think consistency on the field would be priority No. 1,” Belichick complained on his Boston-area radio show. “We talk about players' safety, about hits and all that, and that's certainly an area that should always be addressed. There's nothing more important than player safety. To me, player safety starts on the surface that we play on.”

He called Reliant's field, which is made up of large, thick squares of living grass resting on tray-like pallets, “just inconsistent. It's all the little trays of grass and some of them are soft and some of them are firm, and they don't all fit well together, those seams. Some of it feels like a sponge, some of it feels real firm and hard like the Miami surface. One step you're on one, the other step you're on another.”

Belichick was seen huddling with a group of his offensive linemen at midfield before the game. The Boston Globe reported a couple of the players pointed at the ground and Belichick kicked at the grass, loosening a divot.

Then, a little over five minutes into the game after Welker had caught a short pass from Tom Brady, he cut sharply to avoid Texans safety Bernard Pollard and went down without being hit.

“I really think it's one of the worst fields I've seen,” said Belichick, who won one of his three Super Bowls at Reliant in 2004. “I walked out there and I thought it was terrible. You think it's going to grab and it gives. You think it's going to give and it grabs. That's where you get those non-contact injuries like we saw Sunday.”

Brett Coomer/Chronicle

Welker injury prompts ire

A spokesperson for SMG, the stadium's management company and thus responsible for the condition of the field, said it would have no comment on Belichick's criticism. Reached Wednesday, Texans owner Bob McNair said he was unaware of Belichick's tirade, but he staunchly defended the Reliant surface.

“If we'd had one of our best players injured on the field, I'd probably not feel good, either,” McNair said. “I was sorry to see Welker go down, too. But, when he made the cut — I've looked at it on film — his foot didn't slip out from under him. His knee just gave away.

“The field was in good shape. None of our players complained about it. We all played on the same field, and we didn't experience those problems. ... Having seen the condition of some of the fields up in the Northeast, I don't see how he could complain about ours.”

The Texans lost Pro Bowl tight end Owen Daniels under similar circumstances in Buffalo at midseason. Daniels also went down while changing direction and was never hit, but no one in the Texans organization blamed Rich Stadium's artificial turf.

The Texas Bowl between Navy and Missouri had been played on the Reliant field Thursday and the quick turnaround made it impossible for all of the turf squares to be replaced, so the change-out was limited to midfield, the end zones and sections where the numbers were. The difference in the appearance of the new and the old grass was discernible from above.

Patriots players, however didn't appear to be overly upset about the footing.

“There were a couple slick spots,” safety James Sanders said after the game. “Our job is to show up and play on Sundays, no matter what the conditions are. The footing wasn't that bad.”

Added wide receiver Julian Edelman: “It was a little soggy, but it wasn't too bad.”

A survey done five years ago rated Reliant's field the fourth best in the NFL. The same portable grass system has been in place since the stadium opened in 2002.

“If you look at it through the years, there hasn't been any real problems that I can think of,” said Texans right tackle Eric Winston, who has started every game at Reliant since early in 2006. “No chronic injuries in certain spots, no rash of certain kinds of injuries. It feels the same every week. They do a good job of putting it together. (The field) is OK by us. It's kind of hard to believe that's what caused (Welker's injury). You never know with the (seams where the trays of turf met), if he caught one bad, but I think it's one of those deals that was just a turn of bad luck.”

‘Silly nonsense' to Pitts

Guard Chester Pitts, an original Texan who may have spent more time playing on the Reliant surface than anyone, was livid about Belichick's criticism, calling it “silly nonsense.”

“I would bet every dollar I have that our field is top five in every category from looking good to being functional to being smooth and thick,” Pitts said. “As offensive linemen, we can even wear our nubby, Cadillac-type cleats on it. Our grounds crew spends all that time and energy doing a great job all year around and then suddenly, because Belichick loses a guy, it's a bad field? In comparison to that sorry Field Turf field (the Patriots) play on and that a lot of the teams use to take the easy way out and save money ... ah, just be quiet.”

dale.robertson@chron.com