Opinion: why CFL fans should love upcoming rule changes

Photo courtesy: Paul Yates/B.C. Lions
The sanctity of the Canadian Football League has never been about the 110-yard field or 20-yard end zones with goalposts at the front.

The essence of the league has always been two things it has offered more than any other: unpredictability and progress.

As someone who has invested more than three quarters of his life into this sport as a reporter, broadcaster, and fan — yet has never been paid by the league or its primary media partner — I feel qualified to suggest these changes are more about improving the game than they are about any perceived Americanization of the sport.

One aspect of the CFL game that has grown stale is third downs in field goal range, offering no unpredictably or progress. Offences either go for it on third-and-one or line-up for a routine field goal. What’s so exciting about that?

The odd missed field goal provides entertainment with 300-pound offensive linemen trying to tackle a dynamic kick returner, but those plays are relatively rare. Field goal attempts under 40 yards, which is most of them, are made almost 95 percent of the time. When they’re missed, the ball almost always sails through the end zone for a single point, yielding no return. Unless field goals are long, they’re boring plays.

The new system, which will take full effect in 2027, leads to much less predictability and leaves coaches with three distinct choices.

The first is lining up for a field goal, though these attempts will now be 15 yards longer than before. Teams will have to get to the 18-yard line in order to try a 40-yard field goal, which isn’t a chip-shot. Longer field goals are more susceptible to being blocked, there’s no more point if the ball flies out the back of the end zone, and there’s still risk of a return if the field goal falls short.

The second choice is punting, though this option isn’t likely to net much in terms of field position unless the punter hits a perfect coffin-corner kick. Other outcomes include touchbacks, which result in minimal net gain, or potential big returns the other way. Unless you’re chasing a single point or onside kick — the latter of which could become far more popular — punting in or near field goal range appears to be an unattractive option.

The third is gambling on third down, which is suddenly much more do-able. Offences can use all three downs in this situation to combat defences dropping deep into coverage to create protective shells. By forcing defences to defend short passing and running plays more aggressively, more options could open for offences that want to take more deep shots and rely less on the dink-and-dunk style that has hampered our game this century.

Based on these changes, the CFL’s red zone could become far more interesting than it’s been in a very long time. This is the definition of unpredictability and progress — and the rest of the game we love has stayed pretty much exactly the same.

I’m as leery of Americanizing our great game into irrelevance as anyone. As a child of the ’90s, I still pinch myself to think I had a front-row seat to Doug Flutie’s magic. He was the Michael Jordan of the sport and he was all ours because of our game and all it stood for.

The passer’s subsequent success with the Buffalo Bills opened the eyes of the NFL and forced them to look in the mirror and think of ways to make their own game better, which they have since done.

The timing of these changes might look bad because of the strained political relationship between Canada and the United States. It also seems appropriate to question new CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston for making such drastic changes so fast. He faced some tough questions at his press conference in Toronto last week and will surely face more at this year’s Grey Cup, which is only seven weeks away.

With that said, being open to change is what made the Canadian Football League the greatest game on earth in the first place. Johnston has clearly decided to be less about talk and more about action, which isn’t a bad thing for a game that can always be improved.

These changes feel like unpredictability and progress, two hallmarks of the CFL.