I'm sure I can't be the only one who finds watching CFL football painful lately, with all the flags and challenges and delays and excessive time being burnt up until the end result is a 4 hour game where they still didn't get everything right anyways.

I find it nauseating to watch them dissect a challengeable play by going to a frame by frame analysis. It takes forever and no kidding you're going to find something wrong. In my opinion, there has to be some kind of tolerance for contact, especially on pass interference or illegal contact calls. It's a contact sport.

Here's my suggestion: eliminate the ability to use slow motion replay on challenges. Give the referees access to all available angles of a play, but you can't slow it down. Am I crazy?

You may be crazy, but that's not a bad idea. I have a couple more:

1. Take the ability to ask for a review away from the HC's and give it to the Eye In The Sky official. That should result in significantly less challenges.
2. Put a clock on challenges. 30-45 seconds. If it can't be overturned in that amount of time, then go with the original call.
3. Slow motion and enhanced video should only be used for 'in or out of bounds' calls.
4. Interference challenges should only happen on the obvious ones, not the 'too close to call in real time' ones.

I like 1 it's what NCAA uses and it works pretty good. 

16 minutes ago, Mike said:

I'm sure I can't be the only one who finds watching CFL football painful lately, with all the flags and challenges and delays and excessive time being burnt up until the end result is a 4 hour game where they still didn't get everything right anyways.

I find it nauseating to watch them dissect a challengeable play by going to a frame by frame analysis. It takes forever and no kidding you're going to find something wrong. In my opinion, there has to be some kind of tolerance for contact, especially on pass interference or illegal contact calls. It's a contact sport.

Here's my suggestion: eliminate the ability to use slow motion replay on challenges. Give the referees access to all available angles of a play, but you can't slow it down. Am I crazy?

I find the slow-mo on hits to always make the player look guilty. Slow-mo on possession of fumble or whether or not someone is in bounds to be critical. On the receptions when its disputed whether someone was bobbling the ball or not, slow-mo always looks like the receiver had control when in real time he had it for a split second. 

Yeah - allow it on possession calls and in/out of bounds calls.

But not illegal contact calls.

1 minute ago, Mike said:

Yeah - allow it on possession calls and in/out of bounds calls.

But not illegal contact calls.

Illegal contact is another bad one. In slow motion it always looks like the guy held the receiver forever when in real time it was a fraction of a second. Passing numbers are so high because the of the BS calls on the other side of the field that had nothing to do with the play also. Combined with these review's, its no wonder no one runs the ball anymore. 

2 minutes ago, Ripper said:

Illegal contact is another bad one. In slow motion it always looks like the guy held the receiver forever when in real time it was a fraction of a second. Passing numbers are so high because the of the BS calls on the other side of the field that had nothing to do with the play also. Combined with these review's, its no wonder no one runs the ball anymore. 

No kidding.

It's been ugly to watch this year.

1 minute ago, Mike said:

No kidding.

It's been ugly to watch this year.

Its been our identity for many years. Riders always could run the ball. Even as bad as we sucked last year, we pounded the rock. 2016 Riders have no identity so far. We could friggin use one. Coaches would rather feed off the pathetic officiating and hope for a flag or a challenge than stick with a tried tested and true way to close out a win. You get ahead and run the ball. Kills the clock and destroys the spirit of the opponent. We have blown leads in back to back games. Can't help but wonder what a running might have done to change the out comes.

I want to see a maximum number of challenges that a team can have in a game, regardless of whether or not they get it right. I agree that the games just seem to drag on and on and on, coupled with the agony of sitting in the stands watching us bumble and stumble definitely takes away from the experience.

What about clawing back the challengeable plays?  And/or making only plays within the 20 yards of either end challengeable?

I thought this "eye in the sky" stuff was supposed to be monitoring the game in real time.  For example it should not have been necessary for either coach to challenge the Watson reception or the Posey interception as upon quick review those were both obvious calls.  If the control booth was watching and communicating with the refs. in real time, they could have altered the officials call before a challenge was necessary.  It could have taken 15 secs. instead of delaying the game 3-4 min. for each call.

Edited July 18, 20169 yr by Throw Long Bannatyne

Just do away with it entirely. Waste of time and the calls still aren't 100% correct and now the refs are lazy and won't make calls relying on replay to do their job for them. Oh it doesn't matter if I miss a call, replay will find it!. Just nonsense. Go back to letting the refs ref and we'll all deal with the missed calls because let's be honest here, we are still bitching more than ever about how bad the reffing is in this league. 

No More Challenges. Final minutes in playoff games from upstairs and nothing else. 

I refuse to watch a game live anymore 3.5 hours ! I get it done in 1.5. 

1 hour ago, TBURGESS said:

You may be crazy, but that's not a bad idea. I have a couple more:

1. Take the ability to ask for a review away from the HC's and give it to the Eye In The Sky official. That should result in significantly less challenges.
2. Put a clock on challenges. 30-45 seconds. If it can't be overturned in that amount of time, then go with the original call.
3. Slow motion and enhanced video should only be used for 'in or out of bounds' calls.
4. Interference challenges should only happen on the obvious ones, not the 'too close to call in real time' ones.

I'm 100% in favour of your second point. Plays should only be overturned if the missed call was blatantly obvious.  Spending five minutes watching slow motion replays is nonsense. 

32 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

I'm 100% in favour of your second point. Plays should only be overturned if the missed call was blatantly obvious.  Spending five minutes watching slow motion replays is nonsense. 

Its like they are trying to overturn it. Fact is if there is not overwhelming evidence the call should stand. No need to look at it for eternity.  

This past week, and the week before, ok, since the beginning of the season, the calls for no contact and PI have been pathetic. Let them play ball. And the challenges make a mockery of the whole situation.

I totally agree that if you review plays in slo-mo, you're likely to find something to overturn. 

I can't understand that if there is an eye-in-the-sky, to review plays, why they aren't catching actual transgressions. If they aren't, is there really anything to challenge?

.....thrown to protest all the needless tosses and wasting of time.

Fix it or lose it...

5 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

You may be crazy, but that's not a bad idea. I have a couple more:

1. Take the ability to ask for a review away from the HC's and give it to the Eye In The Sky official. That should result in significantly less challenges.
2. Put a clock on challenges. 30-45 seconds. If it can't be overturned in that amount of time, then go with the original call.
3. Slow motion and enhanced video should only be used for 'in or out of bounds' calls.
4. Interference challenges should only happen on the obvious ones, not the 'too close to call in real time' ones.

I  like 2 3 and 4. I'd like 1 also but I'm not convinced the "eye in the sky" is very reliable. Incompetent if you will. 

The notion was that replay was an attempt to make the correct call. It has contributed to reduce the forum threads bitching about " bad calls"

There was a clock on the challenges when it first came into being but it went over so many times it's no longer there.  What's the use of it?  They fine guys in the booth?  No way to enforce it.

Agree to get rid of all challenges.  Roll with the calls, some you'll get and some you won't but at least we have a watchable game back.

8 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

What about clawing back the challengeable plays?  And/or making only plays within the 20 yards of either end challengeable?

I don't think that would work, turnovers affect the game regardless of where they happen on the field. Also, if you had a rule like that, you have the added issue of determining whether a play was within 20 yards of the endzone (example: A play happened on the 21 yard line, or was it on the 20?) which would just add to the confusion and possibly cause challenges to take even longer.

I'd be okay if they scaled back the use of challenges entirely. If they're going to allow for challenges, they need to do a better job of relaying that information to the home crowds at games and the commentators in the booth. Often it seems there's downtime where everyone is just standing around and nobody knows what is happening or what (if anything) is under review. It just looks plain bad when that happens...

10 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

You may be crazy, but that's not a bad idea. I have a couple more:

1. Take the ability to ask for a review away from the HC's and give it to the Eye In The Sky official. That should result in significantly less challenges.
2. Put a clock on challenges. 30-45 seconds. If it can't be overturned in that amount of time, then go with the original call.
3. Slow motion and enhanced video should only be used for 'in or out of bounds' calls.
4. Interference challenges should only happen on the obvious ones, not the 'too close to call in real time' ones.

The Eye in the Sky official has been worse than useless so far this season.  Unless that changes I don't want them handling reviews.  Your other points are good.  I would also like consistency in their reviews.  One official's review of PI always seems to be different from the next game's official.  The Hamilton game you'd get PI called after review for the lightest of contact, then the very next night they let go obvious PIs AFTER review.  I know it'll never happen but I just want a consistent call from the officials both on and off the field. 

A perfect example of incompetence with the eye in the sky. Poseys interception last week. If they can't get that right. .. they won't get anything right 

5 minutes ago, Goalie said:

A perfect example of incompetence with the eye in the sky. Poseys interception last week. If they can't get that right. .. they won't get anything right 

I don't follow, they got that one right.  Upon challenge they over-turned the officials error. 

The eye in the sky is not to over turn calls its to speed up game play. Who was offside as an example. It's used to get rid of the lengthy huddles officials were having over easily seen things from someone watching at a distance. 

http://www.cfl.ca/2016/04/07/cflboard-of-governors-approves-rule-changes-for-2016/

22 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

You may be crazy, but that's not a bad idea. I have a couple more:

1. Take the ability to ask for a review away from the HC's and give it to the Eye In The Sky official. That should result in significantly less challenges.
2. Put a clock on challenges. 30-45 seconds. If it can't be overturned in that amount of time, then go with the original call.
3. Slow motion and enhanced video should only be used for 'in or out of bounds' calls.
4. Interference challenges should only happen on the obvious ones, not the 'too close to call in real time' ones.

very well said... #1 would probably be hard to implement... but otherwise I agree completely...

The way the 'Eye in the sky' official works now is next to useless, but if they were in charge of all things challenge-able, they could make a huge difference. Of course, the HC's wouldn't want to give up control or another way to change the outcome of games.