https://www.tsn.ca/naylor-many-questions-but-few-answers-on-a-2021-cfl-season-1.1543725

The Canadian Football League has been outrageously quiet since it pulled the plug on its season more than two months ago, leaving behind a wake of speculation about where things are headed next.

With the reality setting in that COVID-19 is likely to still be around in some form next summer, there is real concern about what the 2021 season might look like or if it will occur at all.

There are teams that believe it is vitally important to play in 2021 and that without a season the CFL is in danger of being mothballed. Whether every team believes that is another question. And there is a lot to sort out before anyone can accurately predict what a season might look like and how much pain the teams are collectively willing to stomach to make it happen.

The league and its franchises are currently running through various scenarios for next season, trying to get a handle on true costs of each and working at ways to trim budgets and save money. That’s likely to continue until the league can truly choose a course of action, which feels like next April at the earliest.

Why? Well, there’s not much point in fully committing to a scenario that’s seven months away if that scenario might be totally unrealistic by the time you get there.

There has been no 2021 business plan presented yet, only regular updates to the presidents and governors about what the league is doing to prepare for the unknown.

It should be noted that teams will need to make decisions about retaining assistant coaches with expiring contracts by December, which will be the first real economic commitments to a 2021 season. Restrictions on signing players will need to be lifted well before the opening of February free agency, where players are likely to meet a cautious market – one in which signing bonuses will probably be absent.

There’s a collective bargaining agreement to amend, if not renegotiate, with the players, which will require some kind of pressure point because it always does. But the league can’t sit down with the players until it gets a true handle on revenues and it can’t do that until it chooses a course of action.

Will CFL teams be allowed to have full stadiums next summer? It doesn't seem likely. But just what percentage of capacity will be allowed – if any at all – is impossible to guess. It seems as if the league is counting on the restrictions that currently prevent fans from being in stadiums being lifted. But to what degree?

When will we see a schedule? Good question. Or could we see multiple schedules for different scenarios? Never say never.

Could it be a 21-week, 18-game season played in home stadiums? Unlikely, given the losses teams are expected to take with reduced numbers of fans in the stands. Could we see a return to the 10-week bubble? Maybe. A nine-game schedule played in home stadiums before fans? Perhaps.

The point is no one knows, so demanding answers to questions that can’t possibly be answered right now is a waste of time.

All we know is that there’s going to be a lot less revenue for teams to operate with under any scenario, not just because of crowd restrictions but also due to older fans choosing to stay home for their safety. The CFL’s fan demographics do it no favours in this regard.

Getting consensus on a best course of action won’t be easy for the CFL’s nine teams. Back in the summer, there were teams that were willing to play without government support and teams that weren’t. And just like then, the biggest challenge commissioner Randy Ambrosie faces now is finding a scenario they can all live with.

Adopting a revenue-sharing model so that each team absorbs the same amount of red ink would certainly make consensus-building easier, which many believe should be the direction for the future, COVID-19 or not.

The other elephant in the room is federal government, which many in the CFL believe left it high and dry last summer after months of back-and-forth talks where the league believed it was making progress.

Is the CFL prepared to go down that road again, knowing it doesn’t control the timeline and larger forces can change things in an instant? Perhaps, although it’s not as though the feds don’t have a long list of people coming at them with their hands out.

There will be voices demanding the owners suck up the losses of playing a season under any circumstance, as owners have done in other sports. But the business calculation in sports such as MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA is different because of the percentage of revenues those leagues derive from television.

Losses sustained by playing in those leagues can also be viewed as investments towards protecting massive franchise values. That’s not the case in the CFL, where teams can’t just float money on the backs of their franchise values, and where one third of the teams are publicly owned.

It would be beneficial for the league to soon announce its formal commitment to play some kind of season in 2021.

But beyond that, get ready for months more of waiting with lots of questions and speculation but very few answers.

I remember Flutie as the guy who could get out of the pocket and draw everyone towards himself and just before they reached him he would shovel pass it forward and the d would bite on it every single time.  

39 minutes ago, JCon said:

I'll take Dunnigan, Moon, and Flutie long beforeni take Reilly. 

Reilly had been interested in getting paid far ore than winning. I don't have a problem with that but I think it speaks to his character and why he has so few rings. 

BLM took a pay cut with the pandemic. I'm not sure Reilly did. I never heard that he did anyway but he might have. I know he bitched about not being paid when the CFL season was cancelled. 

3 minutes ago, Brandon said:

I remember Flutie as the guy who could get out of the pocket and draw everyone towards himself and just before they reached him he would shovel pass it forward and the d would bite on it every single time.  

He drove DC's nuts. He could scramble under pressure & improvise. Probably the best CFL QB that could ever do that.

4 minutes ago, Brandon said:

I remember Flutie as the guy who could get out of the pocket and draw everyone towards himself and just before they reached him he would shovel pass it forward and the d would bite on it every single time.  

he was like Wayne Gretzky.  You couldn't lay a hand on him, he could move around so well.  He didn't take a lot of punishment and I think that was his secret, he didn't wear down over the course of the season like other QBs.

1 minute ago, johnzo said:

he was like Wayne Gretzky.  You couldn't lay a hand on him, he could move around so well.  He didn't take a lot of punishment and I think that was his secret, he didn't wear down over the course of the season like other QBs.

Defensive Linemen & Linebackers were too tired to tackle him. 

3 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

He drove DC's nuts. He could scramble under pressure & improvise. Probably the best CFL QB that could ever do that

Doug Flutie was basically a cheat code. Guy was stupidly good. Too young to have seen Warren Moon but from my perspective Flutie the best to play the position in the CFL. 

Flutie once said early on (after his first year in BC) that he couldn’t believe how much of an advantage the offence had, with the bigger field, unlimited pre-snap motion, and the yard off the ball. Said that it was such an unfair advantage for QBs compared to the NFL that unless he made a mistake he felt like defences really had no chance to stop a drive because of the way the game was set up. Then he went out and threw for 6600 yards next year. The Gretzky comparison is apt, since he saw the game differently than everyone else and how to exploit it the best. It has been said by many older than I that the debate about greatest CFLer comes down to him and Jackie Parker, who I never saw play but can’t imagine being so much better than everyone else that he draws Flutie comparisons.

As for Reilly in his prime, it to me is a coin flip between him and Bo Levi as the best (at their peaks Reilly has more yards, Bo more wins and MOP awards, TDs are a toss-up) but even going back 10 years Calvillo produced at a higher level and for longer than either of them. Add in Moon and Brock and I would not see Reilly as anything that special compared to those guys. 

Edited September 11, 20214 yr by TrueBlue4ever

Flutie was a Heisman trophy winner ....a very rare breed to ever come and play the three down game....The NFL said he was too small to ever be anything in their league....While he finally ended up back there he sure lit up our league and proved that their assessment of him, in his early days, was out to lunch....Glad he played here and certainly gave the CFL a lot of recognition......Two of my favourite qb's to ever play in the CFL....Tom Clements and Flutie.......(besides Ploen of course and a forgotten guy by the name of Jim Van Pelt)

Edited September 11, 20214 yr by Stickem

******* kids around here, I swear..... 

Flutie 

Moon

Ray

Dunigan 

(and maybe Calvillo) 

All before Reilly or BLM. 

20 minutes ago, Noeller said:

******* kids around here, I swear..... 

Flutie 

Moon

Ray

Dunigan 

(and maybe Calvillo) 

All before Reilly or BLM. 

Ac above or atleast equal to ray. 

1 and 2 may not be equaled in my life time if ever. 

If I had to pick one guy to win one game in their prime though I'd take Reilly and Dunnigan over ray. 

Nope. Just flat out wrong. Ray might be the most underrated CFL player ever and AC the most overrated (it's him or Allen)... 

I was too young to remember Moon in the CFL.

Flutie, Dunigan, Garcia, AC, and Ray were the best I have seen up here.

6 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Nope. Just flat out wrong. Ray might be the most underrated CFL player ever and AC the most overrated (it's him or Allen)... 

Curious why you see AC as overrated. The all-time passing yardage mark might be a misleading thing that is overhyped and leads to the “not as good as it would suggest” mentality, but he was a 3 time MOP, went over 5,000 yards 7 times, topping out at over 6,000 once with another 3 over 5,500, played 20 seasons, holds most of the all-time records in the regular season and playoffs, went to a record 8 Grey Cups and won 3 as a QB. 

And in that vein, although he is an all-time favourite around here, I would say Dunigan could slide into overrated territory. Was second-best to Flutie in his prime, and had a small window of super high success with a lot of injury issues. Lots of flash and swagger but the numbers and wins don’t match up to the other all-time greats. 

13 hours ago, Mark H. said:

I remember Flutie torching the Bombers in the Reinbolde era - with something like an 85% completion percentage. Knuckles gave up and just started gushing about Flutie. 

I saw Flutie once v. Bombers. He was unstoppable. maybe it was that game.

 

 

25 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Nope. Just flat out wrong. Ray might be the most underrated CFL player ever and AC the most overrated (it's him or Allen)... 

Ever since Edmonton made that 'stupidest trade of all time with Toronto' it has some how become an accepted fact - that Ray is not that good

It's ridiculous - first off, he played behind subpar Offensive Lines for most of his career in Edmonton - similar to Mike Reilly

I don't know what's up with the Elk's / Esk's recent history of shitty QB protection

I can't remember the year - but Ray passed for 5000 yards - playing behind an abysmal offensive line and no rushing attack to speak of

 

12 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Curious why you see AC as overrated. The all-time passing yardage mark might be a misleading thing that is overhyped and leads to the “not as good as it would suggest” mentality, but he was a 3 time MOP, went over 5,000 yards 7 times, topping out at over 6,000 once with another 3 over 5,500, played 20 seasons, holds most of the all-time records in the regular season and playoffs, went to a record 8 Grey Cups and won 3 as a QB. 

And in that vein, although he is an all-time favourite around here, I would say Dunigan could slide into overrated territory. Was second-best to Flutie in his prime, and had a small window of super high success with a lot of injury issues. Lots of flash and swagger but the numbers and wins don’t match up to the other all-time greats. 

More so than anyone else on my list, AC was a product of a good system... Surrounded with a lot more tools and weapons than others. When he didn't have everything perfect around him, he wasn't as good. As Mark says above, Frito made the most out of the least. 

Fist bump to Matty G for remembering Jeff Garcia. He was here for such a short period of time that I totally forgot about him. An NFL talent that should never have been up here. 

25 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Curious why you see AC as overrated. The all-time passing yardage mark might be a misleading thing that is overhyped and leads to the “not as good as it would suggest” mentality, but he was a 3 time MOP, went over 5,000 yards 7 times, topping out at over 6,000 once with another 3 over 5,500, played 20 seasons, holds most of the all-time records in the regular season and playoffs, went to a record 8 Grey Cups and won 3 as a QB. 

And in that vein, although he is an all-time favourite around here, I would say Dunigan could slide into overrated territory. Was second-best to Flutie in his prime, and had a small window of super high success with a lot of injury issues. Lots of flash and swagger but the numbers and wins don’t match up to the other all-time greats. 

Injuries were what stopped Dunigan. When healthy he had the scariest arm of them all.

13 minutes ago, Noeller said:

More so than anyone else on my list, AC was a product of a good system... Surrounded with a lot more tools and weapons than others. When he didn't have everything perfect around him, he wasn't as good. As Mark says above, Frito made the most out of the least. 

Fist bump to Matty G for remembering Jeff Garcia. He was here for such a short period of time that I totally forgot about him. An NFL talent that should never have been up here. 

Something to be said for what AC had around him for sure.

18 minutes ago, Mark F said:

I saw Flutie once v. Bombers. He was unstoppable. maybe it was that game.

 

 

I’d ask which game, but since you could pick one of dozens and it would be true, that would tell you it wasn’t just that game. 

We should have won that 1993 Grey Cup with Matty D. 

Still bothers me and I wasn't even a teenager yet.

13 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

BLM took a pay cut with the pandemic. I'm not sure Reilly did. I never heard that he did anyway but he might have. I know he bitched about not being paid when the CFL season was cancelled. 

He drove DC's nuts. He could scramble under pressure & improvise. Probably the best CFL QB that could ever do that.

Yes he had a six sense when it came to  pocket pressure and would make more people miss  and then he  would scramble and  find an open receiver. I have never seen ANY Qb do it as well. None. 

17 minutes ago, Noeller said:

More so than anyone else on my list, AC was a product of a good system... Surrounded with a lot more tools and weapons than others. When he didn't have everything perfect around him, he wasn't as good. As Mark says above, Frito made the most out of the least. 

Fist bump to Matty G for remembering Jeff Garcia. He was here for such a short period of time that I totally forgot about him. An NFL talent that should never have been up here. 

It could be argued that good players make good systems. Yes he had talent and an all-world running back for part of his run, but to be dominant  for over a decade, with all the roster turnover around him and multiple coaching staffs, he was the glue on those teams to my mind. Agree about Garcia too.

Calvillo to Cahoon was the best short yardage combo that I know of. Tons of completions that really should have hit the turf. 

11 minutes ago, bb1 said:

Yes he had a six sense when it came to  pocket pressure and would make more people miss  and then he  would scramble and  find an open receiver. I have never seen ANY Qb do it as well. None. 

Flutie did it first and was arguably better at it.

1 hour ago, Noeller said:

Nope. Just flat out wrong. Ray might be the most underrated CFL player ever and AC the most overrated (it's him or Allen)... 

Ac was better in a variety of systems both balanced and west coast. Ray only excelled in one system. He had a better arm and better mobility now then Ray at his best too. 

Ray isn't under rated. He was great. 

31 minutes ago, Noeller said:

More so than anyone else on my list, AC was a product of a good system... Surrounded with a lot more tools and weapons than others. When he didn't have everything perfect around him, he wasn't as good. As Mark says above, Frito made the most out of the least. 

Fist bump to Matty G for remembering Jeff Garcia. He was here for such a short period of time that I totally forgot about him. An NFL talent that should never have been up here. 

That's laughable. Ray never ran a different system. Ac was an Allstar in 6 plus types of offense. Ray had great wrs ac made weapons better. 

Dunigan was like Streveler but half the size and twice the arm.

I'd love to put a * beside Warren Moon's name because of the way Edmonton was able to abuse the way they paid their players vs. the rest of the league, but he was the prototype. He was that good.