{"id":411485,"date":"2026-01-15T18:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/411485\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:36:22","slug":"cfl-commissioner-stewart-johnston-denies-pushback-to-structural-rule-changes-wont-consider-reversal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/411485\/","title":{"rendered":"CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston denies pushback to structural rule changes, won’t consider reversal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: David Moll\/CFL.<\/p>\n

CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston is not interested in rehashing the debate around the league\u2019s upcoming structural rule changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the CFL winter meetings in Calgary, Johnston cleared up any confusion as to whether those changes could be subject to alteration or reversal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe changes announced in September were unanimously approved by the board of governors and as I\u2019ve said in the past, enthusiastically approved by the board, who are looking to progress our game, modernize our great game, and focus on those elements that keep us absolutely Canadian, like three downs and like our Canadian ratio. That\u2019s our focus moving forward,\u201d Johnston told 3DownNation.<\/p>\n

In his first year on the job, the commissioner announced several controversial structural changes<\/a> to be rolled out over the next two seasons.<\/p>\n

Beginning in 2026, the rouge will be modified to eliminate points for missed field goals, and the play clock will be changed to 35 seconds of running time. In 2027, goal posts will be moved to the back of the end zone, the end zone will be shortened to 15 yards, and the field itself will shrink to 100 yards, eliminating the iconic 55-yard line.<\/p>\n

The league opted not to discuss these changes with general managers, coaches, or players prior to their announcement, believing that such substantial proposals would become bogged down in debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This week in Calgary marked the first time that the rules committee had gathered since that decision, and some members indicated they had done their own research in preparation for a discussion<\/a>, most notably Alouettes GM Danny Maciocia.<\/p>\n

However, Johnston indicated that he received \u201cno pushback\u201d to the changes<\/a> and was not presented with any differing data.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing specific. Certainly, no one sent me any type of research of any kind,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had our football operations department that has run data across every play of every game for the last number of decades. They\u2019re the ones who compiled that data, and those are the discussions we\u2019ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was asked whether there had been any pushback that I had heard so far this week, and there hasn\u2019t been. I didn\u2019t go around polling everybody, but there hasn\u2019t been (pushback). We\u2019ve just had great discussions on what we\u2019re doing moving this league forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league has claimed that the changes planned for 2027 will result in 10 percent more end zone completions and 60 more touchdowns per season, based on their internal projections. That raw data or the methodology behind the projections was never made public, leading some to question their validity.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Stampeders head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson said he had \u201cno idea\u201d where the league was pulling those numbers from and suggested it was not possible to predict those results. Johnston defended the league\u2019s research from skeptics in his own address, cautioning that the increase must be viewed holistically and cannot be isolated to any one of the structural changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve applied all the data, which included all the changes together \u2014 all of them. It\u2019s not just one change, it\u2019s not just 15-yard (end zones), but it\u2019s also the goal post to the back. It\u2019s also a 100-yard field. It\u2019s a 35-second clock. It\u2019s all of it together,\u201d Johnston insisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat data that we use through our league office gave us the indication that more touchdowns would be scored. Now, just to be clear, less field goals will be scored, so this isn\u2019t about just pure net increase in scoring. It\u2019s an increase in touchdowns, likely at the expense of field goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the insistence that the league data is accurate, it does not appear to matter if their projection comes true. When asked specifically whether the league would consider reverting to the traditional field dimensions if it does not see a significant increase in touchdowns in 2027, Johnston suggested that would not be on the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say if there were 75 added touchdowns in 2027, I would not take a one-year sample as an example of what\u2019s going to happen to our game. Coaches need time to adjust, players need time to adjust,\u201d he said, flipping the script.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter which way our game goes, you\u2019re going to need to build a sample of seasons to understand where the trends are leading, and then this is what these winter meetings do. We look at trends, and we see how we anticipate where they\u2019re going to go, and are there any tweaks we need to make to adjust for those.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the focus of this week\u2019s meetings, not the robust structural pushback some fans were hoping for<\/a>. The rules committee did address the implications of the new 35-second play clock, recommending that the existing 20-second clock be used within three minutes<\/a> in order to preserve late-game excitement, but did not challenge the directives of the board of governors.<\/p>\n

Those structural changes will come into effect no matter what and will be maintained for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: David Moll\/CFL. CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston is not interested in rehashing the debate around the league\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,520,62411,527,2002,41816,170991,82,84996,139627],"class_list":["post-411485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-commissioner","tag-football","tag-league","tag-rule-changes","tag-rules-committee","tag-sports","tag-stewart-johnston","tag-winter-meetings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411485","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=411485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}