League changing the CFL rule book
Not that he ever needed another reason to smile, but Jerrell Gavins has one.
The 10-yard objectionable conduct penalty that the Ottawa Redblacks defensive halfback received for handing a football to a child in the stands after making an interception in a home game against the Edmonton Eskimos last July has been removed from the Canadian Football League rule book for the 2016 season.
“Certainly our in-boxes filled up (with complaints),” CFL senior vice-president Glen Johnson said Thursday at TD Place stadium following the second of his nine presentations about nearly a dozen rule changes overall to coaches and media representatives in CFL cities.
“It was absolutely an unintended consequence when we created the rule. We did it to try to preserve the offensive footballs for a team. The unintended consequence was unfortunately for the (other) fan who couldn’t get that football.”
“Don’t worry about it,” was what head coach Rick Campbell told Gavins at the time, even though the Redblacks lost that game 23-12.
“That was a rule that was put in because each offence has their own footballs and someone said, ‘We can’t have the other team throwing our football in the stands. Then we have one less football,’” said Campbell, a member of the CFL committee that developed the proposals for ratification by the board.
“Really, it doesn’t matter because we have a bunch of other footballs and it’s way more important to have a good fan experience.
“That’s a good example of something getting corrected that needed to get corrected and there was really no debate over that one.”
Of nearly a dozen changes approved for this season, the “Gavins amendment” will have much less impact that others.
Chief among them are the addition of a video official at the CFL’s Toronto command centre, the expanded list of penalties that can be challenged by coaches and a tweak to the definition of “illegal procedure” that will enable offensive linemen in three-point stances to point with their free arm to indicate changed blocking assignments as long as they reset for one second before the football is snapped.
Johnson said the CFL expected that change alone would reduce total penalties by more than 100. Of the 1,905 infractions recorded last season — 23.52 per game, or 8.9 per cent more than in 2014 — 168 were for illegal procedure, which also includes illegal formations by the offensive and kicking units.
The number of infractions per game was 18.2 in 2011, three seasons before the Redblacks played their first contest, and Johnson said the increase since then was the No. 1 generator of complaints to league offices.
“They don’t like it, they don’t like all the stoppages. ‘The officials are on television too much.’ I don’t disagree with any of that.”
The mandate of the commandcentre video official is to correct obvious errors on penalty calls that don’t fall into the categories covered by coaches’ challenges. An example would be determining whether a defender was offside at the line of scrimmage or was simply reacting to illegal procedure by the offensive team.
The CFL introduced coaches’ challenges for defensive pass interference two seasons ago. Added as subjects for review in 2016 are offensive pass interference, illegal contact against or by eligible receivers and illegal interference on pass plays, as well as “no yards” infractions on punts, called illegal blocks on kick returns, illegal interference on short kickoffs, contacting/roughing the kicker and roughing the passer.
The number of challenges per team isn’t changing: two each, plus a third if the first two challenges are upheld by video review.
Campbell allowed he had “come around” on the idea of video review, understanding the value in correcting obvious errors on penalty calls, but expanding the list of fouls that could be challenged would also mean even more decisions made in the heat of the action on the field. For example, he said, a coach might not want to challenge the lesser five-yard no-yards penalty unless that punt resulted in a turnover.
PRICE RETIRES, TRADE STANDS
Former Redblacks receiver Maurice Price surprised his new club, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, by retiring on Thursday.
Price, 30, made 58 receptions for 603 yards and one touchdown with Ottawa last season. He was traded to Saskatchewan, then signed a contract extension with the Roughriders.
Under league regulations, the trade stands. The Redblacks received the 45th and 54th selections in this year’s CFL college draft, while the Roughriders also received the 52nd pick.