The CFL rules changes are good

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At a press conference in Toronto yesterday, first-year CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston unveiled a suite of rules changes that he called, without exaggeration, "the most significant in decades" for the league.

The new rules will be phased in over the next two seasons. Starting in 2026, the kicking team can no longer score a single point for missed field goals, punts or kickoffs that go through the end zone (the rouge will still be awarded when the returner fails to get the ball out of the end zone or takes a knee). Also, an automatic 35-second play clock will start when the previous play is blown dead, while the benches in all stadiums will be placed on opposite sides of the field to help teams get their substitutions in on time.

The bigger changes arrive in 2027, when the length of the field will be reduced from 110 yards to 100 (the same as the NFL), while the end zones will be tightened from 20 yards to 15. Also, the goalposts will move from the goal-line to the back of the reconfigured end zones.

Johnston, the former president of TSN, which has been the CFL's exclusive broadcaster since 2008, suggested the changes were necessary for survival in an era of declining interest in the league.

"This is all about making our great game even more entertaining," he said in a press release. "We are trading field goals for touchdowns, while improving fan experience in stadiums and at home.

"[The changes] have been thoughtfully and carefully considered. But they are big and bold because that's what's necessary to make our fantastic game even more entertaining, and to win in the attention economy."

WATCH | CFL announces major rule changes:

'It's time for some change,' former CFL star Bryan Chiu says after the Canadian league announced rule changes to improve its game and make it more entertaining for fans. Among those changes includes a shortened field and restricting how single points are awarded.

The changes were unanimously approved by the CFL's Lead Governors, which includes team owners and chairpersons. And for the most part, they've been well-received by fans and the media. Even players and coaches, the two groups who will have to work the hardest to adapt, appear to be largely on board — or at least ambivalent enough to stay quiet.

But not everyone is taking it well. B.C. Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke, the CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian award winner in 2022, called the new rules "garbage" and said they "make it sound like we want to be like the league down south" — meaning, of course, the NFL. "What we're moving towards is not Canadian football, the game I grew up loving."

Rourke isn't alone. Log on to Twitter (if you dare) and you'll find traditionalists howling that the new rules rob the CFL of its distinct idiosyncrasies. Some seem to believe that these are not just comparative advantages for the league, but essential pieces of Canadian culture.

My take is that this is an overreaction.

Sure, the new rules make the CFL a bit more like the NFL. But the vast majority of things that really differentiate the league in a good way — mainly three downs, a wider field and the mandatory quota of Canadian players, but also defenders lining up a yard off the ball, a five-yard halo around kick returners and the "waggle" (allowing pass catchers to run toward the line of scrimmage before the snap) — remain in place.

What Johnston and the governors did do is get rid of some of the league's less endearing quirks.

WATCH | CFL rule changes meant to make game more entertaining:

The Canadian Football League unveiled a two-part plan Monday, to be phased in over two years, that includes changes like shortening the field, moving the goal posts to the back of the end zone and restricting how single points are awarded.

In particular, the goalposts smack dab in the middle of the goal-line always struck me as silly. Yes, they lead to some exciting returns off missed field goals — a good CFL quirk whose demise we can genuinely lament. But they clog up the most important area of the field, sometimes in comical fashion, and are an aesthetic nightmare. Moving them out of the way should open up passing lanes to the end zone and encourage coaches to go for it on third down rather than settle for what will now be a longer field-goal attempt.

The new play clock seems pretty uncontroversial. An automatic 35-second countdown starting right after each play should improve game flow over the current system, where the referee basically waits until everyone is ready before manually whistling in a 20-second clock. That's a wildly inconsistent process that often results in way too much time between plays.

As for the old 110-yard field and 20-yard end zones, are they truly a big loss? Sure, visually, the reduced real estate might take some getting used to. But the big end zones don't even fit in some stadiums, and the truncated versions can look kind of bush league.

Having said all that, I get why some people might be upset. Change is hard, and right now there's a completely understandable sensitivity in this country to anything that feels like an American incursion.

But I would argue that it's more important than ever to preserve the core elements of Canadian culture while adapting and modernizing in a sensible way to ensure that the things that really matter survive. It's only football, but maybe the CFL has shown us a way to do that.