Photo courtesy: CFL. The 55-yard-line will soon no longer exist in the CFL.
At last, the Canadian Football League is getting out of the dark ages and modernizing a product that, while at its peak can be a beautiful thing to watch, has so many archaic, nonsensical idiosyncrasies that it affected how the game is played and presented.
There is a ‘finally’ element to this. Finally, the end zone will be less of its own postal code. Finally, the entirety of the end zone will legitimately be in play for touchdowns. Finally, you will not be rewarded with a point for blasting a field goal or punt through the end zone. Finally, the league will look more professional with teams on opposite sidelines — and with it, finally you won’t have substitutions that require 300-pound linemen to run 70 yards just to get into the huddle pre-snap.
Finally, Toronto and Montreal’s stadiums won’t have their end zones cut off for space. Finally, there will be consistency with a play clock that has been too random for too long, since the referee arbitrarily decides when the 20-second timer should begin.
But more than that, finally, the stubborn governors — who have longed craved control over improvement, hellbent on keeping power in place of innovation — have agreed to the vision of modern football from the new commissioner, who has already in five months brought more ingenuity and advancement to the on-field product than his predecessors of the last half-century did.
These changes will produce more touchdowns than field goals. They will create urgency between the whistles. They will force a modernization from coaches. They will allow full use of the playbook more than ever. If you’re pinned inside your two-yard-line after a goal line stand, offences will now have room to maneuver and not be pinned by an immovable object behind them.
On the opposite end of the field, when a team gets into the red zone on a scoring drive, the middle of the end zone will be wide open for skilled players to work their magic instead of dodging a metallic upright that never should have been there in the first place. It will lead to fewer fade balls lingering in the air, less possibility of collision and penalties, more open spaces to work through for elite performers. And ultimately, it means a true requirement for precision on throws from quarterbacks to receivers to earn touchdowns.
Make no mistake about it: once the mouth breathers stop their yelping and longing for the days of more typewriters and land lines in the aftermath of these changes, the CFL by the summer of 2027 is going to get the offensive jolt it has needed. This is the CFL’s version of baseball implementing the pitch clock.
Remember, it was a minute or two ago that traditionalists there were screaming about action being sped up on the mound and how it would harm the very essence of what was happening on the diamond. Then it all unveiled itself, and the game has never been more efficient and entertaining and fast-moving. Not only is baseball not looking back, but we barely remember the doldrums of four-and-a-half hour ordeals on weeknights.
The CFL needed to do this. We aren’t returning to watching movies on VHS. Evolve or die.
The product has been in a rut and too predictable. Too many teams doing the same things. So much of the same passivity from offensive play callers. Head coaches, some still dinosaurs believing that keeping their offence on the field on third-and-two is a “gamble,” will have to change their thinking, and keep their foot on the accelerator.
This will force a spark and generate more highlight-reel moments in a quick-click, consumable content world. The more sizzle the players can provide in the end zone, the more attention the game will get. As automatic as José Carlos Maltos Díaz may be for Montreal, fans want six, not three.
Here’s what else shortening the field has the potential to do: increase revenue for teams that need it. Whether it’s a premium experience field-level, like Seattle and Los Angeles have, or making it a beer garden, social space that make coming to stadiums more appealing. Especially for the crowd that wants to post being seen on their social channels.
There will be unintended consequences, and the first will be how the CFL teams will accommodate the stadiums on university campuses. At McGill, the University of Calgary, University of Regina, and University of Manitoba, lines are stitched into the synthetic surfaces — not painted. New turf will need to be installed at a seven-figure cost to their professional tenants.
The Als, Stamps, Riders, and Blue Bombers need to extend the olive branch and write the cheque (not check) without hesitation. On the field, the rules committee will quickly have to change ball placement for touchbacks in the case of no rouge — when a punt or field goal is crushed out of the back of the end zone. The starting field position in that scenario should be the 35-yard-line, not the 40, with the length of the field reduced. Eventually, they’ll get that fixed.
The CFL’s ways of doing it as they’d always done wasn’t leading to growth. These changes are the ticket to progress. They aren’t the magic bullet, but they’re a step — a major step. A required step. A step that will give games an improved look, feel, and flow.
Finally, the Canadian Football League is getting out of the dark ages. Celebrate today.
There is finally a willingness to make the product pop and get away from the doing the same old thing that has handcuffed progress and originality. A major first step to a better game, where more viral moments can be created by the greatness of its players.