{"id":212403,"date":"2025-10-14T13:28:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/212403\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T13:28:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:28:40","slug":"cfl-rule-changes-reaction-winnipeg-blue-bombers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/212403\/","title":{"rendered":"CFL Rule Changes Reaction – Winnipeg Blue Bombers"},"content":{"rendered":"

No one waves the maple leaf flag more fervently than Mike Miller, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers special teams coordinator who calls Riverview, New Brunswick home and managed to carve out a 12-year career in the Canadian Football League as an undrafted homegrown product.<\/p>\n

And so, when the CFL unveiled its rule changes for the 2026-27 seasons on Monday Miller\u2019s first reaction was honest, passionate and from the heart.<\/p>\n

He agreed with the idea of opposite field benches and was indifferent to the changes to the play clock, but among the changes he disliked because they remove part of the Canadian aspects to the game were the decision to move the goalposts and the shortening of the field \u2014 which will be implemented in 2007 \u2014 and the changes to the rouge, which comes into play next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I heard the news and watched the press conference, I had a really weird feeling in my gut when they announced it,\u201d Miller said after the club\u2019s practice on Tuesday to a scrum of media. \u201cIt was kind of a little sickening. I didn\u2019t expect it and just felt it in my stomach, and it didn\u2019t sit well with me at the time, like I ate something bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the stadiums, they put the \u2018C\u2019 at the centre and to me that was for Canadian as well. The rouge is talked about, made fun of or whatever, but it was just part of the Canadian game. To see those two major changes and take 20 yards away from the field that we usually have\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 Shocked with the news and it didn\u2019t sit well. Not the greatest news yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller was among four coaches\/players who spoke to the media on Tuesday about the rule changes which are outlined in this piece<\/a> we posted yesterday.<\/p>\n

We also dedicated the entire episode of this week\u2019s Huddle to the rule changes in our visit with veteran guard Pat Neufeld.<\/p>\n

Immediate reaction across the Blue Bombers locker room \u2014 indeed across the entire CFL \u2014 has been varied and began with the response of B.C. Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Nathan delivered a very passionate case from the players\u2019 point of view, from the Canadian purist point of view,\u201d said Blue Bombers head coach Mike O\u2019Shea. \u201cWe love the Canadian brand of football. We love the CFL and Canadian football across Canada. It\u2019s a great game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do I stand? I think everyone understands where I would stand, I\u2019ll say it: if we\u2019re going to be altering the game and removing the uniquely Canadian items from the game, I would never be in favour of that.<\/p>\n

\u2026 This is uniquely ours. I love it. It\u2019s an exciting game.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea did add there were a couple of items he was OK with, \u201cbut will still require a little more research on my part where I sit down and actually put a game on and go through the items, go through the plays and see how it\u2019s going to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our job in the offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea spoke of how moving the goalpost to the back of the end zone will likely eliminate a play that was so critical in Winnipeg\u2019s most-recent win \u2014 Trey Vaval\u2019s 128-yard missed field goal return for a touchdown, one that was followed up with an additional 71 yards on another miss, with the 199 yards on those two runs establishing a new CFL record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be highly unlikely anyone is ever going to do that again once they move the posts,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the numbers are down south, but how many (missed field goal) returns have there been in the last decade and the answer would be next to none.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we get two in one game, and we\u2019ve scored on one and had one scored against us, let alone all the yardage that was accumulated. It\u2019s an exciting part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he was afraid this might be a step toward the further Americanization of the CFL, he added:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m generally not afraid of much so \u2018fear\u2019 is probably a strong word. We\u2019re not privy to the extended plan. The idea that after two years this is where the changes stop? I don\u2019t know. That would be all speculation on my part.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s part of the foundation for the beef by players and coaches \u2014 the people most impacted by the changes weren\u2019t part of the discussion before the announcement. And when asked if he thought that was a problem, O\u2019Shea said, \u201cWell, I would think transparency would be important.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 I have no clue why we wouldn\u2019t have been asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the reaction would fall in the \u2018wait and see\u2019 category, including how moving the goalposts might impact scoring \u2014 CFL analytics suggested it could mean 60 more touchdowns \u2014 and the new 35-second play clock that will see it automatically begin as soon as the previous play is whistled dead. Currently, the 20-second play clock does not start until manually initiated by an official.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t think too much of them \u2014 not in a negative way or not in a positive way. It\u2019s just part of growth, it\u2019s part of growing the league,\u201d said receiver Nic Demski. \u201cI don\u2019t look at all the stats and how to make bigger plays, I just trust the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis league pays my bills, and I\u2019ve had a lot of good years here, so I don\u2019t have any complaints. There\u2019s some things you scratch your head at, but there are other things that make sense. Again, you\u2019re never going to be completely happy with everything especially when they change something that has been around for so long but at the end of the day my voice isn\u2019t really going to change that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play here. I love this game and there are still a lot of good things that are part of this game that we play. Some things got taken out but at the end of the day, it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a lot of fear-mongering beginning on Sunday when the league sent out a press release saying Monday\u2019s media conference would outline \u2018major changes\u2019 to the game. And so the fact that much of the key factors in that \u2014 the ratio, the three downs, the motion \u2014 remain intact did impact some of the reaction a day later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not nostalgic about the CFL pre-2012 (his first year in the league) because it just wasn\u2019t on television for us in the U.S.,\u201d added quarterback Zach Collaros. \u201cI understand fans and players and coaches alike that don\u2019t want things to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, if the task is to increase revenue and get more eyeballs on the game then I would imagine those people making those decisions would have thought those things through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s changing the CFL game that much or, really, at all. Obviously, the biggest change would be you\u2019re not going to get as many returns on (missed) field goals. That\u2019s something I\u2019ll miss, fans will miss. But there\u2019s still 12 players, the Waggle, the yard off the ball (at the line of scrimmage), the ratio didn\u2019t change \u2014 those things to me are the CFL.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No one waves the maple leaf flag more fervently than Mike Miller, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers special teams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-212403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212403","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=212403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}