Quote:
Originally Posted by dash_pinched
Imagine this scenario - You're at the opponents 40 yard line and it's 3rd and 4. With the way the CFL game currently is, you're lining up to kick a 47 yard FG. By moving the goalposts to the back of the endzone, it's now a 62 yard FG. You're not going to punt the ball because the field position you'll gain unless it's a perfectly placed punt is going to be negligible.
I think this will lead to coaches being more aggressive and going for it more on 3rd down which is a good thing in my book.
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I’ve been thinking about some of this today.
So I think the big downside is that because our end zone is bigger than the NFL it makes kicking even harder. This is gonna really marginalize kickers in the CFL. It’s also gonna make comebacks more difficult in close games because you’re gonna have to get down to like the 25 at worst to be able to kick a 47 yard field goal.
Now the smaller field will offset that a bit because you won’t have as far to travel. But the 35 second play clock might work against you depending on how time stoppages work in the last three minutes.
Having no uprights in the end zone will make it a little bit easier if you need a touchdown because now the middle of the field is going to be open but in close games it’s gonna hurt.
The next thing specific to your point about teams going for it more often is that coaches so frequently coach not to lose. We see this constantly when teams punt when they shouldn’t. The Riders did it last week against Montreal and Edmonton did it this week against Hamilton. Both were third and short and both times they punted in opposition territory because the coaches are ####ing cowards.
When you think about the dynamics in a game a coach may still choose to punt even if he’s only up by three because now he knows that the other team needs to travel almost the entire length of the field to be able to kick a field goal.
Lastly I can’t help but wonder if they announced this so far in advance because they want time to be able to evaluate the reaction. I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility that they will only keep some of these changes.
I wish there was an easier way to test this during preseason or something. The field size might be harder to test but I can’t imagine it would be that hard to test the goal posts and the rouge stuff.