Traditions must be respected when making changes

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/03/2015 (4037 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Benicio Del Toro had it right in the 2003 film The Hunted when he told his adversaries, who were masquerading as deer hunters armed with high-powered rifles and scopes, “There’s no reverence in what you do.” The same can be said when it comes to some of the proposals being submitted to the CFL Board of Governors by the rules committee. There needs to be a decorum of reverence, in terms of honour and respect, to both the traditions and history of the Canadian football game as the journey for the 103rd Grey Cup begins.

Scoring, attendance and viewership may have been slightly down for the CFL in 2014 — with penalties and defence the only things on the rise — but there is no reason for the league to take drastic measures or panic.

Not only has there been a changing of the guard in terms of new and younger players establishing themselves in the CFL, but the battle between seasons of dominant defence and offence is part of the natural history of the CFL. Implementing one-sided gimmicks to even up the ledger cheapens the game and interrupts how this institution self-corrects and polices itself over time.

Before a review of the list, it is important to note none of the proposals for rule changes submitted by the committee have actually been accepted or adopted by the CFL yet (thank God). These submissions will be reviewed by the governors and hopefully the ones that impact the integrity of the game will be left on the cutting room floor.

Moving the two-point convert attempt from the five-yard line to the three-yard line is the same as rewarding someone for incompetence. The average offensive play in the CFL goes for more than five yards, so why make it even easier to get an extra point for doing something that is notably pedestrian? Do not punish and embarrass the efforts of defences by handing out free tokens on offence. The CFL already has a wider and longer field than its southern competitor, virtually limitless motion rules, and an extra player on both sides of the ball. If the offences aren’t scoring enough points with all of their inherent advantages, then the natural selection of offensive co-ordinators will eventually even things out.

Better

It’s the same with the proposal about not impeding or redirecting a receiver more than five yards past the line of scrimmage. If your receivers can’t shake coverage on a field of this magnitude, it will inevitably lead to you recruiting better ones. There is no crying in baseball and no free rides in pro football. It’s just the way things are.

As for the interior five linemen not being allowed to run downfield until the ball is kicked on punt team, be careful about robbing Peter to pay Paul. You may increase punt returns with such a rule, but you will definitely eliminate blocked punts at the same time, which are also an exciting feature of the game. And rules that eliminate popular elements of the game should not be adopted.

One of the few proposals worth considering though, is backing up extra-point attempts. PATs have been useless and pointless demonstrations of minimal athletic ability since their inception. Since more than 99 per cent of extra-point kicks are made, moving the spot from where they are kicked back 20 yards will at least make the point earned — something it has never been. So bravo to the rules committee for this one.

Lastly, the suggestion of testing a three-point convert in the pre-season, where they place the ball on the 10-yard line, is an affront to the tried and true principles of the game. This is not the XFL desperately seeking and searching for novel and quirky ways to separate themselves from their competitors and to create an audience. You don’t just invent a new way to score more points for a game that has been around longer than anyone who watches it. The disconnect between the stewards of the game that suggest things such as three-point converts, and “Our Balls Are Bigger,” campaigns, do far more harm to the sport than good.

As we get older, it is said we fear and resist change because of the uncertainty and unsettling nature that comes with it. That being what it is, less is more when it comes to grand cultural institutions in Canada like the CFL. Some traditions of excellence are better off left the way they are, with only a little tune or tweak here and there as the game and sport naturally evolves.

 

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97