{"id":162163,"date":"2025-09-22T20:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/162163\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T20:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:26:09","slug":"cfl-commissioner-stewart-johnston-wont-guarantee-league-will-never-switch-to-four-downs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/162163\/","title":{"rendered":"CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston won’t guarantee league will never switch to four downs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Courtesy: CFL<\/p>\n

CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston isn\u2019t guaranteeing the league will never switch to four-down football<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t offer guarantees [about staying with three downs permanently],\u201d Johnston told 3DownNation directly at Hotel X in Toronto on Monday. \u201cI don\u2019t say the word \u2018never.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old, who was born in Toronto and raised in Ottawa, spoke to 3DownNation one-on-one<\/a>\u00a0after unveiling multiple rule changes for 2026 and 2027<\/a>. Among the alterations are a shortened field, smaller end zones with uprights moved to the back, a modified rouge, and a new clock system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will alleviate [fan anxiety] by saying \u2026 we truly believe in 2027, when these changes are fully in effect, we will have opened up the canvas of our game \u2014 our playing field \u2014 to the incredible entertainment value that\u2019s already there, and that includes three downs, 12 players, 65-yard wide field, waggle, yard off the ball, no yards, all of that,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to expose and we think that these new field dimensions \u2014 and, in particular, taking those huge metal obstructions out of the visual of our most important area on the field, the end zones \u2014 I think it\u2019s going to be so amazing for the game that we have. I never say never because this world moves fast. Some folks have asked me, \u2018Why are you moving so fast?\u2019 It\u2019s because the world moves fast. We\u2019ve gotta work at pace, work with urgency, and achieve the goals we want to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

That presser was held one day after the league sent out a press release promising \u201csignificant changes to the game.\u201d Fans spent the next 24 hours questioning what would change \u2014 especially the possibility of throwing out three downs in favour of four.<\/p>\n

Though it sounds like Johnston and the board of governors are done with rule changes for now, take his word for it: there\u2019s no guarantee the CFL will play three-down football forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re going to hear a lot from myself and the league with exciting announcements over the next coming weeks and months. We\u2019re not focused on rules \u2014 of course, we have a rules committee, and it will annually look to tweak and improve our game, but we have a lot of other exciting announcements we\u2019re working on and that\u2019s our focus,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy: CFL CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston isn\u2019t guaranteeing the league will never switch to four-down football. \u201cI don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-162163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}