SportCage analyst Arash Madani issued a prediction that the CFL will keep the 55-yard line and not remove it in 2027.

“Here’s one for you. This is not sourced and this is not, ‘The league is leaning this way.’ It would not surprise me if at some point in 2026, they claw back the idea of removing the 55-yard line. Again, it’s not sourced, it’s not that I’ve talked to people about it,” Madani prefaced on the SportsCage.

“There’s been so much noise, like at some point, give the fans something, but give those venues something, give the stadiums that the league plays in a little something, especially since you didn’t have them involved. It’s okay to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do 90 percent of what we decided. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. That’s something that wouldn’t surprise me if it happened in 2026.”

CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston announced on September 22, 2025 that in 2026 teams are required to have benches on opposite sides of the field. On top of that, there won’t be a 20-second play clock, instead it will be replaced with a 35-second one. As for the rouge, that will be changed where it can only be awarded if a returner fails to bring the football out of the end zone or voluntarily takes a knee. That replaced the old rule where a punt or missed field goal was a rouge if the ball went through the end zone.

In 2027, the 55-yard line is planned to be gone because the league wants all CFL fields to shrink from 110 to 100 yards goal line to goal line. Not only that, the end zone length will be shortened from 20 yards to 15 and the goalposts will be moved to the back of the end zones.

TSN analyst Glen Suitor heard Madani’s prediction about the 55-yard line and agreed.

“Some of the reasons for doing it that have come out of the league office have been a little weak. The main one to me is that if you move the goalposts back, you wanted to shorten the field so that your field goal attempts don’t drop dramatically because now you have to get so much further in and to the offensive side of the field to actually get your field goal team out there. That works together with the goalposts moving back,” Suitor said.

“If there was any rule that I think they would sort of say, we thought about it and we didn’t want to make the change that it would be that 10 yards.”

One person who shared their concern regarding the impending change to the field size, University of Regina director of sport Lisa Robertson explained the potential financial problems.

“To change over turf, it’s in the millions of dollars to change the end zones, to change the uprights. They have soccer playing on those same fields, they have rugby playing on those same fields. We have football here, but on their home turf — like our home turf — we have our soccer team playing. The expense is in the hundreds of millions to ask 23 schools to switch over their field,” Robertson said.

“They’re all in different life cycles. We did an analysis, U Sports asked us, ‘Where’s your field in its life cycle for switching over?’ It’s varied, but none of it aligns. My gut says in terms of field size, I think we roll along as is with the current field size. Do we look possibly six, eight years out and start to think about what maybe we could do? Sure. But not on the timeline that the CFL is making the change.”