The Canadian Football League’s winter meetings wrapped up in Calgary on Wednesday. According to commissioner Stuart Johnston, consensus was reached on several agenda items.
“No pushback and the feedback has been alright, we’ve got automatic play clock as an example, you can see the wheels turning, how is that going to apply? Certainly, how is it going to apply from the official’s perspective? How do we make sure that we’re trained properly for the officials to implement that and the consistency that the 35 seconds is going to deliver? How do we make sure we are supporting that as a key piece of why we move to a 35-second clock? How do the benches on opposite sides work? So it’s been really encouraging to hear the discussion on the application of these rules.”
In addition to game timing, a new overtime format was agreed to. Not everything passed, though, like the idea of adding an American player draft.
“The feedback came back to we generate ideas by putting a proposal forward for discussion. And the proposal we put out was, how about a 10-round draft? And so from there you can take the feedback, adjust it, or take the feedback and get rid of it. And the feedback that we received was focused around we’re incredibly focused with a lot of resources put against the Canadian draft.”
“We also have the global draft and we’ve got a negotiation list where we are managing American players through that process. And so, as we talked it through, it seemed like there wasn’t — we were trying to find what the benefit is. But having said that, and this is what I love coming out of these meetings, you put a proposal like that, or a thought starter like that in front of a group of football minds, and then all of a sudden the brainstorming happens and you pivot right off of that. I mean, we went into a ton of different directions. So that was sort of the tone of the conversation.”
The agreed-upon ideas and changes will now be submitted for approval and implementation.
“What we come out of winter meetings with are recommendations, and recommendations then go to management council for approval. And from there, they go to the board for approval. So please know that when I’m speaking of anything that’s being discussed, that’s being solidified, it’s as a recommendation for approval.”
See all of the Commissioner’s comments at SportsCage.com.
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