CFL looking at new rules

[jerrym]

The rules committee of the CFL is looking at the league's rules with regard to improving game flow and player safety. Below is a summary of what was changed last year and some of the items being looked at for this year.

❚ The CFL reduced the number of flags thrown by its officials by 13 per cent last year, which is a significant improvement, but it’s still not good enough.“Reducing penalties is something we’ve been working on for a number of years now and we continue to realize there are still too many penalties in the game,” Johnson said. “It’s a shared responsibility among coaches and players and officials and we must keep working hard to try to figure out ways to get that number down.”Committee members also will try to identify penalties they can remove from the rule book. “We took out a certain kind of penalty last year that reduced the number of penalties by about 100,” Johnson said. “It was a procedure movement by the offensive linemen. We allowed them to be a little more fluid and only stationary just prior to the snap.”Another idea is changing t he s t andard by which certain calls — like illegal blocks on kick returns — are made. “Possibly we’re going to make a certain type of play more lenient on the standard,” Johnson said. “We don’ t want f ans saying, every time there’s a big play, ‘ Oh my goodness is there going to be a penalty?’ We want to get to a spot where you are enjoying that excitement and only on those rare occasions will there be a penalty.
❚ Player safety is always at or near the top of the list for the CFL and Johnson expects the committee to focus on actions related to blocking this week. In order to not increase the number of flags thrown — that would conflict with one of the other major points of discussion — one idea is to look at making certain kinds of penalties more punitive.
❚ The league was forced to make a rule change in midseason last year because too many coaches’ challenge flags were being thrown. They made the decision to throw a challenge flag more punitive for coaches by put- ting a timeout at risk for every challenge, whereas in the past they only put a timeout at risk with their second challenge.Until the change was made, coaches’ challenges had risen to 2.2 per game from 1.26 and the new timeout rule helped bring that number back down to 1.6 per game. Of course, last year at this time the rules committee added seven new penalties that coaches could challenge, which certainly contributed to the rise in flags.“We feel we’re still not in a spot that’s good enough,” Johnson said. “We’re looking at, ‘ Should we challenge less things? Some of those penalties, should we take them out?’ We’re also looking at changing the process itself, so potentially, how many challenges coaches get or the actual process we use to do it. If we can make it faster, does that make more sense? Have the number be the same but have the whole thing just take a shorter period of time.”
❚ The committee also will look at the way the league uses its video official, who works out of the command centre in Toronto and is connected by headset to the officials on the field.Introduced last season, the “eye- in- the- sky” helped with “administrative” aspects of the game, like correcting spots, adjusting game clocks and, on rare occasions, telling on- field officials to pick up flags. That happened only 10 times all season.The rules committee is looking at more ways for the video official to become involved and get things right, without affecting the flow of the game. “Fix something that is obviously wrong, fix it in a hurry,” Johnson said. “Let’s do the right thing and just keep moving.” The rules committee could recommend allowing the video official to call penalties, but only in a situation where the play is already stopped by another flag. “We don’t want to start officiating the game from the command centre,” Johnson said. “But once a flag is already down, and we’ve already stopped the game, there’s some administration that’s going to happen and we want them to just think about getting the situation right.”

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/n...81986082376143

[jerrym]

The CFL rules committee has proposed having many more commercials occur during challenges to increase the flow of the game, increasing the role of the video official, increasing the illegal low block penalty from 10 to 15 yards in the hopes it will decrease these and increase player safety, among other things.

“Finding the right balance between using technology to help officiate the game and protecting the flow of the game is a challenge facing all sports and leagues including the CFL. We are tackling that challenge with the best possible fan experience, in stadium and on broadcast, as a top priority.” Specifically, a coach would no longer be allowed to challenge a play following a TV commercial timeout.
If the change is approved, a coach would have to throw his challenge flag within the first 30 seconds of the TV break. Currently, where there is a TV timeout on the field, a coach can wait the entire duration of a break before deciding to challenge, as long as he does so before the next snap. The result can be a two-minute commercial break followed by a 90 second challenge, hampering the flow of the game.
The committee is also suggesting limiting the types of actions challengeable under Roughing the Passer to the pure definition of Rule 7.2.4. on page 56 of the CFL Rulebook, which applies to when a quarterback is in the act of passing or potentially passing the ball, and when the quarterback slides feet-first across the line of scrimmage. Other unnecessary roughness penalties that may occur against the passer behind the line of scrimmage, such as grabbing the facemask or horse collar tackles, would no longer be challengeable.
As well, actions that occur when the quarterback is across the line of scrimmage running with the ball, a quarterback sneak and dead ball fouls on the quarterback would no longer be challengeable. The committee believes this will reduce the number of challenges while still ensuring the quarterback is protected when in the act of passing or potentially passing he ball, the original intent of making roughing the passer reviewable. It is also recommending retaining a rule change made at midseason least year, which put a timeout at risk for every coach challenge that is incorrect. The committee is also proposing that the replay official only a change a call where there is clear and indisputable evidence that it is wrong, rather than attempt to officiate plays to ensure they are correct.
Members believe these two combined measures, in place for a full season, will discourage coaches from using their challenges, especially as they put timeouts at risk. They estimate this can reduce the number of challenges by 20% or more while still allowing coaches to challenge big plays that have a material impact on the game.
Finally, TSN will go to commercial on every challenge it can. It’s estimated that 80% of challenges will now be done during a commercial, up from 20% last season. That will significantly reduce unnecessary stoppages in the game and improve the fan experience both in stadium and on broadcast.
The committee has also recommended increasing the duties of the video official in the Command Centre so they can correct errors when:

• When a flag has been thrown for a line of scrimmage penalty (offside or procedure)
• When a flag has been thrown for an unnecessary roughness penalty following a play and the video official sees other unnecessary roughness infractions
• When a call for illegal contact on a receiver should be changed to defensive pass interference because the ball had been thrown

To further promote player safety, the committee wants to change all 10-yard illegal low block penalties to 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalties. The committee recognized the importance of signaling that such dangerous blocks have no place in the game.
The committee wants to prevent the return team on a kicking play from putting a player on the field a split second prior to the snap and trying to hide him so he can receive a lateral pass from the kick returner. This sort of “sleeper play” would be subject to a 10-yard penalty.
All rules committee recommendations must be reviewed by the league’s competition committee and ultimately approved by its Board of Governors before they go into effect.

http://www.cfl.ca/2017/03/22/rules-c...lenge-process/