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If you guys are going to follow Ricky this year, and I hope you do, then here are some things to know to follow and understand the CFL game. As other have said, it’s a very old game. The Toronto Argonauts franchise was established in 1873, and at over 130 years old it is the oldest professional sports franchise in North America. The championship trophy in the CFL is called the Grey Cup and it was donated by Albert Grey, otherwise know as the 4th Earl Grey and who was the Governor General of Canada at the time, and it has been awarded since 1909 with only a 4 years off during WWI.
The game itself is older than the NFL game but it has evolved in a number of ways over the years like the NFL has. It differs from the NFL game in many ways but 3 key was need to be understood by an NFL fan before your can begin to understand the play of the game. The 1st is that there are only 3 downs. The 2nd is that the field is 65 yards wide, not 53.5 yards wide, and the 3rd is that there is an extra player on the field and he is a receiver on offence and a DB on defence.
I think the best way to think of this from an NFL fans standpoint is to picture an NFL game where the offence is lined up with 3 WRs a FB and a RB. Then stretch the short side of the field out making the field 11.5 yards wider. Now stick and extra WR out there in that extra space and a DB on defence to cover him. Now pretend that all 1st downs automatically become 2nd downs, so you are always starting in 2nd and long. Now make yourself the coach. Which players are you going to use and what plays are you doing to call?
The shift in emphasis from power to speed and quickness becomes clear quite quickly. The straight ahead running game won’t be nearly as effective as you’re always starting in 2nd and long, but you do have a huge amount of extra width to use with no extra players in the box. A RB who is quick and fast enough to get to the outside, or at least to threaten to get to the outside and thereby spread the defence, is going to be much more effective than a straight ahead more power oriented back. This is why RBs like John Avery can be very successful in the CFL while a running back like Skip Hicks got cut by the Argos without ever playing a down.
The same factors affect the QB position. With only 3 downs and little to no power running game there is a lot of pressure on the QB to find a way to get first downs. QBs who can use the width of the field by rolling out to buy more time and perhaps even running themselves are the ones who tend to be successful. Note that by rolling out and spreading the defensive line there are many more passing lanes so being tall isn’t that important, but being athletic is very important. Jeff Garcia, Doug Flutie and Warren Moon are prototypical CFL QBs, for example, and of course all learned to play like that in the CFL before becoming NFL stars. Moon says that it’s harder to get a first down in the CFL and a lot more pressure is put in the QB to make it happen.
You can follow this through and begin to understand the differences on defence too. Defensive lines are no longer defending against 220 RBs and pocket passers. They are defending against 190 lbs. RBs who run 4.41 40s and make cuts like a jackrabbit. (There was a reason Avery was drafted in the 1st round after all). And the QBs are all more athletic than the standard NFL pocket passer and all are able to rollout and many can run too. Kerry Joseph ran for over 1,000 yards last year while passing for close to 4,500. Defensive lines, especially DEs, and the linebacking cores not only have to cover a field over 20% wider with the same number of people, but they have to cover fast, quick, athletic RBs and QBs and almost no power backs or pocket passers. Consequently they are smaller and quicker than players who play on the DL and in the LB corps in the NFL. CFL DEs you might be familiar with include Raheim Abdullah, who was a second round NFL draft pick as an OLB, and Jonathan Brown, a 3rd round pick of Green Bay. Brown plays for the Argos too and this year Eric Flowers and Issac Hilton will be trying out for them as quick DEs who can cover the wide field too.
DTs aren’t quite as different in the CFL but we don’t have any Wilforks, or Ted Washingtons. Guys that size become pylons on the big field when nobody is running at them. (There are a couple of other rules that have an impact on these guys as well. There are only 20 seconds between plays after the ref places the ball, and rosters are only 40 men, and if a new rule gets approved this year 42 men, so there aren’t as many subs.) Dario Romero is a guy who began his career in the CFL and did ok, although I don’t think he was a star. He went on to play for Miami and is now back trying out with Montreal. Another DT in the NFL who came from the CFL is Willie Whitehead.
Our OLBs are often converted safeties because they need to cover a lot of extra ground and they don’t face many power backs. Ricky will be changing that as Robert Edwards did to some extent last year, so we’ll be seeing some changes at that position, perhaps moving back to small but quick NCAA LBs. Brendon Ayanbadejo was a pretty good CFL LB before heading to the NFL, as was Shelton Quarles.
Other differences include the lack of TEs in the CFL. Again, with the wide field and only 3 downs it’s better to put an extra receiver out there than a TE. Defences use 4 DBs and one safety. Two CBs cover the WRs, two other DBs play inside to cover the two SBs, and the safety plays centre field, or he blitzes, or provides double coverage, or a lot of other possible variations and stunts. With no TEs and very few RBs in the 220 range DBs don’t have to be that big to survive without getting injured, but they do have to be very fast. Rollout QBs extend plays and so the average CFL play is longer than the average NFL play, and so the DB has to keep coverage on his man longer and in a bigger area. So you’ll find a lot of 5'10" 180 lbs DBs with 4.40 speed in the CFL.
There are other differences too. The DL has to line up one yard off the ball, for one, but this can serve as your primer. Training camp in now on and the season starts in less than a month. Check it out. It’s quite different than the NFL, but it’s a very wide open and fun brand of football. Doug Flutie has always said that it put the fun back into football for him and he’s not alone. Most American players who come up come to love the game. It doesn’t pay like the NFL, with the average salary being about $80,000, but top non QBs can get between $150k and $200k and top QBs get between $350k and $450k. Ricky Ray asked to get out of his contract with the Jets last year and reportedly gave back some of his signing bonus so he could come back and start for the Edmonton and make $450k Cdn, which is about $400k US these days.
So as you can see the CFL is a very different game than the NFL game, and the kinds of players that excel are quite a bit different. Ricky Williams isn’t ideally suited to the CFL game because he doesn’t have the top speed to take advantage of the width of the field, but he’s going into a situation that may well work very well for him. He’ll be close to the slowest RB in the league but he’ll also be the biggest and he’s coming in at a time when defences have specialized to a high degree on stopping the small, quick, fast back. He’s also going to a team with a very agile and still quite fast QB, Marcus Allen’s brother Damon Allen. Historically teams have focussed on keeping Damon in the pocket to limit the damage he can do when the rolls out and runs. With RW defences will have to worry about the inside as much as the outside running and Damon and Ricky could be a deadly one two punch.
The game itself is older than the NFL game but it has evolved in a number of ways over the years like the NFL has. It differs from the NFL game in many ways but 3 key was need to be understood by an NFL fan before your can begin to understand the play of the game. The 1st is that there are only 3 downs. The 2nd is that the field is 65 yards wide, not 53.5 yards wide, and the 3rd is that there is an extra player on the field and he is a receiver on offence and a DB on defence.
I think the best way to think of this from an NFL fans standpoint is to picture an NFL game where the offence is lined up with 3 WRs a FB and a RB. Then stretch the short side of the field out making the field 11.5 yards wider. Now stick and extra WR out there in that extra space and a DB on defence to cover him. Now pretend that all 1st downs automatically become 2nd downs, so you are always starting in 2nd and long. Now make yourself the coach. Which players are you going to use and what plays are you doing to call?
The shift in emphasis from power to speed and quickness becomes clear quite quickly. The straight ahead running game won’t be nearly as effective as you’re always starting in 2nd and long, but you do have a huge amount of extra width to use with no extra players in the box. A RB who is quick and fast enough to get to the outside, or at least to threaten to get to the outside and thereby spread the defence, is going to be much more effective than a straight ahead more power oriented back. This is why RBs like John Avery can be very successful in the CFL while a running back like Skip Hicks got cut by the Argos without ever playing a down.
The same factors affect the QB position. With only 3 downs and little to no power running game there is a lot of pressure on the QB to find a way to get first downs. QBs who can use the width of the field by rolling out to buy more time and perhaps even running themselves are the ones who tend to be successful. Note that by rolling out and spreading the defensive line there are many more passing lanes so being tall isn’t that important, but being athletic is very important. Jeff Garcia, Doug Flutie and Warren Moon are prototypical CFL QBs, for example, and of course all learned to play like that in the CFL before becoming NFL stars. Moon says that it’s harder to get a first down in the CFL and a lot more pressure is put in the QB to make it happen.
You can follow this through and begin to understand the differences on defence too. Defensive lines are no longer defending against 220 RBs and pocket passers. They are defending against 190 lbs. RBs who run 4.41 40s and make cuts like a jackrabbit. (There was a reason Avery was drafted in the 1st round after all). And the QBs are all more athletic than the standard NFL pocket passer and all are able to rollout and many can run too. Kerry Joseph ran for over 1,000 yards last year while passing for close to 4,500. Defensive lines, especially DEs, and the linebacking cores not only have to cover a field over 20% wider with the same number of people, but they have to cover fast, quick, athletic RBs and QBs and almost no power backs or pocket passers. Consequently they are smaller and quicker than players who play on the DL and in the LB corps in the NFL. CFL DEs you might be familiar with include Raheim Abdullah, who was a second round NFL draft pick as an OLB, and Jonathan Brown, a 3rd round pick of Green Bay. Brown plays for the Argos too and this year Eric Flowers and Issac Hilton will be trying out for them as quick DEs who can cover the wide field too.
DTs aren’t quite as different in the CFL but we don’t have any Wilforks, or Ted Washingtons. Guys that size become pylons on the big field when nobody is running at them. (There are a couple of other rules that have an impact on these guys as well. There are only 20 seconds between plays after the ref places the ball, and rosters are only 40 men, and if a new rule gets approved this year 42 men, so there aren’t as many subs.) Dario Romero is a guy who began his career in the CFL and did ok, although I don’t think he was a star. He went on to play for Miami and is now back trying out with Montreal. Another DT in the NFL who came from the CFL is Willie Whitehead.
Our OLBs are often converted safeties because they need to cover a lot of extra ground and they don’t face many power backs. Ricky will be changing that as Robert Edwards did to some extent last year, so we’ll be seeing some changes at that position, perhaps moving back to small but quick NCAA LBs. Brendon Ayanbadejo was a pretty good CFL LB before heading to the NFL, as was Shelton Quarles.
Other differences include the lack of TEs in the CFL. Again, with the wide field and only 3 downs it’s better to put an extra receiver out there than a TE. Defences use 4 DBs and one safety. Two CBs cover the WRs, two other DBs play inside to cover the two SBs, and the safety plays centre field, or he blitzes, or provides double coverage, or a lot of other possible variations and stunts. With no TEs and very few RBs in the 220 range DBs don’t have to be that big to survive without getting injured, but they do have to be very fast. Rollout QBs extend plays and so the average CFL play is longer than the average NFL play, and so the DB has to keep coverage on his man longer and in a bigger area. So you’ll find a lot of 5'10" 180 lbs DBs with 4.40 speed in the CFL.
There are other differences too. The DL has to line up one yard off the ball, for one, but this can serve as your primer. Training camp in now on and the season starts in less than a month. Check it out. It’s quite different than the NFL, but it’s a very wide open and fun brand of football. Doug Flutie has always said that it put the fun back into football for him and he’s not alone. Most American players who come up come to love the game. It doesn’t pay like the NFL, with the average salary being about $80,000, but top non QBs can get between $150k and $200k and top QBs get between $350k and $450k. Ricky Ray asked to get out of his contract with the Jets last year and reportedly gave back some of his signing bonus so he could come back and start for the Edmonton and make $450k Cdn, which is about $400k US these days.
So as you can see the CFL is a very different game than the NFL game, and the kinds of players that excel are quite a bit different. Ricky Williams isn’t ideally suited to the CFL game because he doesn’t have the top speed to take advantage of the width of the field, but he’s going into a situation that may well work very well for him. He’ll be close to the slowest RB in the league but he’ll also be the biggest and he’s coming in at a time when defences have specialized to a high degree on stopping the small, quick, fast back. He’s also going to a team with a very agile and still quite fast QB, Marcus Allen’s brother Damon Allen. Historically teams have focussed on keeping Damon in the pocket to limit the damage he can do when the rolls out and runs. With RW defences will have to worry about the inside as much as the outside running and Damon and Ricky could be a deadly one two punch.
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