This is an open letter to CFL fans.
Dear Fans,
The 2015 CFL season is in full swing and the league that we know and loved has been altered. It has been consistent, if not more exciting. However, some fixable issues still rattle the teams, the league, and especially you, the fans. I suggest we do something radical. But what exactly?
We’ve all heard the tired tirades about a blown call, a replay fail, injuries….
Stop. Stop right there. Let’s look at injuries and player safety.
The Facts
We all know that injuries are unavoidable in professional contact sports like football. We also expect them. It’s just a part of the reality and players sign up willingly.
Though the CFL cannot avoid the possibility of serious injury, they can minimize it. They can take every step and every precaution that leads them to the most safe playing environment for any football player on the planet.
Steps are taken by the league every year in an effort to make this possible, but they are still nowhere near happy. There are too many complaints and misgivings about the CFL to assume that happiness reigns at any level. We have a problem.
The Causes & Effects Of Injuries
Injuries to key players, and the sheer number of injuries we are seeing, hurt the quality of the product that the CFL and TSN try to sell from week to week. It has to be frustrating for the league to be putting your best foot forward down south to attract new viewers and dealing with all the holdups. Every 35-plus penalty affair turns potential fans away. And penalties can stem from injuries.
It can force the hands of GM’s ever closer to the cap in an effort to replace players on injured lists. There is a reason there are almost 90 bodies in training camps these days compared to the 1970’s where teams invited 60-70 players to their camp. These days in the CFL, coaches need to seriously evaluate 80 or more interchangeable parts every season.
As a result, teams see third and fourth stringers getting reps too early in their careers, before they are prepared. Some are having their careers put in jeopardy. They are being told, “this is your opportunity to win a job.” You can bet that the best of the lot are straining themselves trying to make good on the try-out before them.
This of course also makes depth players more susceptible to injury and more penalties because they can’t play as fast or loose as the game speed demands. All they want is to make an impression on their coaches, GM, and the fans so they are flying around. Mistakes happen.
What’s the remedy? It would start and possibly end with more preparation time. For all of the officials, coaches, and especially the players.
The Big Fix
Typically this is a league that takes its time and moves slowly but surely. But in 2014, the CFL broke out of that mold as a league that makes subtle changes from year-to-year. That continued this past off-season with even more tweaking.
Riding this radical wave of change, I would like the CFL to reduce the amount of games played and increase the amount of preseason games. These changes would be made to better prepare all involved on game day. It could have a very positive impact in the areas of penalty reduction, injury reduction, and player safety.
I move that we have two weeks between all games and only play a 13-game season with nine regular season and four preseason contests for each team. The playoffs would follow and like the regular season would also be at least an 11-day break between games. Because there would be two additional preseason contests and the same number of actual weeks in the season, the preseason would be rolled back a month to early May. And the combine, draft, supplemental draft, camps and all other time sensitive announcements would be rolled back one month.
I know. It’s hard to imagine being satisfied with fewer games. You might have to clean your house on weeks off!
The CFL’s teams would be playing fewer but more impactful games, with more time to rest and prepare for each contest. Rookie and veteran players alike would have the opportunity to learn the playbook comprehensively before any real football is played.
The competition committee, the CFL, and their broadcast partner TSN have already considered starting the season earlier to benefit the Grey Cup celebration weather-wise and to greater control the television schedule. One would think with player safety at the forefront of this major change, no argument could be made on the calendar front with those two reasons already having been considered.
I know that my theory and solution will be questioned in the comments. My motivation is an easy-to-market CFL with minimal complaints from fans and, of course, to keep players healthy and the best product on the field.
If you wondering how leagues have failed player safety in the past, you need look no further than the inventions of the jockstrap and the helmet. It took early football geniuses 60 years to even conceive of the helmet after protecting their intimate parts in 1874. Helmets became a piece of the uniform in the mid to late 20s but were not required until the late 30s.
And let’s be honest, every “gain” made in player safety over the last 150 years is insufficient; some of our best and our brightest players are spending too much time on the injured list. Let’s be forward-thinking. Let’s do what we haven’t done yet and give everyone some much-needed time to prepare.
This is what one thinks about when facing a bye week and an 0-8 record. Radical ideas usually garner radical responses. And now I’d like to invite the fear and loathing to commence.
Sincerely,
Kelly Bale
