Are you ready for some football? Hard to believe, but football season is right around the corner. A week or so ago, I was looking for something to watch besides the Olympics and I ran across a re-run of a Canadian Football game. Over the years, I’ve periodically watched a few Canadian games. They’re very similar to the NFL games, but there are some significant differences.
I thought since I don’t have anything better to do today, it might be interesting to discuss the differences in American (NFL) and Canadian (CFL) football.
I’m not sure of all the details, but both American and Canadian football descended from rugby, and the game of football actually began in Canada. Even though they both came from rugby, the game developed differently in both countries and both have a few substantially different rules and regulations.
When I first watched Canadian football, they talked about something called a rouge — something I’d never heard of. Turns out it’s exclusive to Canadian football. A rouge is sometimes called “a single” and it is a method of scoring that involves kicking the ball into the end zone. As you might guess, a rouge is a single, or one point. One point is awarded when the ball is kicked into the end zone by any legal means and the receiving team does not return the ball out of the end zone. This single point thing is still a little confusing to me, but as I understand it, a single point is awarded to the kicking team when: The kicking team misses a field goal or punts the ball and the receiving team does not return the ball out of their end zone. Or, when the kicking team misses a field goal or punts and the ball goes through the end zone and out of bounds without being touched.
Other than “the rouge” the scoring is pretty much the same in both leagues. A safety is two points, a field goal is three points, a touchdown in six points. A kicked extra point is one point, and a conversion run is two points.
One obvious difference in the two games is the size of the field. In Canada, football fields are 110 yards long and 65 yards wide. In American football fields are 100 yards long and 53 ⅓ yards wide. The goal posts in Canadian football are placed at the front, rather than the back of the end zone.
Of course the NFL is all about the money — the latest statistics I could find indicated that in 2017, the average yearly salary for an NFL player was around $2.7 million. The average salary for a CFL player was about $96,857 (Canadian dollars.)
An NFL team is comprised of 11 players. In the CFL there are 12 players. The NFL allows four downs to advance the ball 10 yards. The CFL only allows three downs.
The NFL permits each team three timeouts per half and there is a two-minute warning at the end of each half. CFL rules allow two timeouts per game and a three-minute warning.
When a play is over, NFL teams have 40 seconds to run an offensive play after the referee’s whistle. In the CFL, after the play is over, the referee whistles for the next play to start and the offense has 20 seconds to snap the ball.
There is no fair catch rule in the CFL and the punting team must give a cushion of about five yards to allow the punt returner to either catch the ball in mid-air, after it bounces, or pick it up and run after the ball has stopped bouncing. It’s a ten-yard penalty if the kicking team does not allow the five-yard cushion.
Both American and Canadian football descended from rugby and many, if not most, of the rule differences came about as the result of rules changes in American football in the early 20th century, which were not copied by Canadian football — but they’re both still basically the same game.
Then, of course, there’s Australian football….there is absolutely no similarity between Australian football and American or Canadian football — maybe we can explore some of the hundreds of differences another time.
But for now, it’s time to get ready for the new season, because football is the most important of the less important things in the world.
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