The CFL season is now in week five and already CFL officiating has been questioned by fans and critics alike. Through the first three weeks, many had given the refs the benefit of the doubt as the players were the ones making the mistakes.
The CFL officiating staff, led by Glen Johnson, did a lot in the off-season to help the referees with the NFL-CFL exchange program and the eye in the sky. Here is the CFL.ca description of the eye in the sky.
“The CFL is adding a video official in the Command Centre with a mandate to rapidly fix obvious errors that are not challenge able by replay. This official would act as a kind of “eye in the sky” with access to a feed from a special camera that will capture all 24 players on the football field. For example, when both the offence and defence jump into the neutral zone prior to the snap and four officials have flags, all with a slightly different perspective, the Video Official would look at a play in a few seconds and communicate to the Referee which team jumped first, speeding up the game and ensuring the right call is made.”
Even though the eye in the sky is supposed to speed up the game, and make sure the right call is made, games are longer and calls are being questioned. Despite a 24% decrease in penalties compared to this point a year ago, games are taking four minutes longer. A reason for that could be the amount of coaches challenges. Through 16 games, 39 coaches challenge flags have been thrown, leading to an average of 2.4 – an increase of 1.1 compared to last season’s total. 51% of challenges have been overturned, a 17% increase to the total from last season. More mistakes from CFL officiating leads to more coaches challenges and longer games.
It was evident on Friday night’s game with the Ottawa Redblacks and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
There were two cases of calls that were very similar but one got called and one didn’t, and another play that even the command centre got wrong.
Saskatchewan’s A.C. Leonard was called for roughing the passer but Ottawa’s Zack Evans was not on his third sack of the game. Both plays were challenged and it looked like both players hit the quarterbacks head, but only one was called roughing the passer.
The next play changed the outcome of the game, as Namaan Roosevelt was running his route and bumped into Redblacks DB Abdul Kanneh, and after a challenge it was deemed a defensive pass interference. Late in the fourth quarter, with the Redblacks down by one point, quarterback Brock Jensen threw a pass to Chris Williams but Williams was held up by Roughrider DB Buddy Jackson and no DPI was called, which led to a Saskatchewan win.
Most fans around the CFL are asking the CFL officiating to have some consistency and make correct calls. By doing this, paying fans and hard-working players will enjoy fair games equally.
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