1981 CFL season

1981 CFL season
East champions	Edmonton Eskimos
69th Grey Cup
Date	November 22, 1981
Champions	Edmonton Eskimos
CFL seasons
← 1980 1982  →

The 1981 CFL season is considered to be the 28th season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 24th Canadian Football League season.

CFL News in 1981

The Eastern and Western Football Conferences, which had carried on as separate and autonomous entities since the founding of the CFL in 1958, agreed to a full merger prior to the start of the 1981 season.

With the merger, the Eastern and Western Football Conferences were dissolved and renamed as the East and West Divisions.

The merger authorized the CFL to have full authority over decisions, including the adoption of a full interlocking schedule for both divisions. All nine teams played each other twice, once home and once away, regardless of their affiliated division. Other than during the three seasons of the CFL's U.S. expansion era from 1993 to 1995, the League's teams played at least one game home and one away versus every other team in the League since the 1981 season; this continued until the 2021 season.

In addition, the merger set up the CFL Board of Governors and the CFL Management Council to replace the Executive Committee and the General Managers Committee. After the 1980 season, after owning the team for over ten years,

, owned by Expos owner Charles Bronfman, took over the team's players and history.

The East was so weak this season that the Calgary Stampeders, despite being the West's fifth place team, finished with a better record than the second place Ottawa Rough Riders. Ottawa nevertheless upset the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and qualified for the Grey Cup despite winning only five games in the regular season finishing seventh overall.

The ensuing controversy over having a 5–11 team playing in the Grey Cup played a large part in eventually persuading the league to implement a cross-over rule permitting a fourth place team in one division to qualify for the playoffs in place of a third place team in the other division with a weaker record. Nevertheless, the current rule makes no provision to allow a fifth place team to make the playoffs even if its record is better than that of the second place team in the other division, which occurred in 2018.

Regular season standings

Final regular season standings

Note: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pts = Points

West Division

Team	GP	W	L	T	PF	PA	Pts
Edmonton Eskimos	16	14	1	1	576	277	29
Winnipeg Blue Bombers	16	11	5	0	517	299	22
BC Lions	16	10	6	0	438	377	20
Saskatchewan Roughriders	16	9	7	0	431	371	18
Calgary Stampeders	16	6	10	0	306	367	12

East Division view talk edit
Team	GP	W	L	T	Pts	PF	PA	Div	Stk
Hamilton Tiger-Cats	16	11	4	1	23	414	335	6–0	W1	Details
Ottawa Rough Riders	16	5	11	0	10	306	446	3–3	L1	Details
Montreal Alouettes	16	3	13	0	6	267	518	2–4	W1	Details
Toronto Argonauts	16	2	14	0	4	241	506	1–5	L2	Details

• Bold text means that they have clinched the playoffs.
• Edmonton and Hamilton have first round byes.

Grey Cup playoffs

The

.

Playoff bracket

November 8: Division Semifinals

November 15: Division Finals

November 22: 69th Grey Cup @ Olympic Stadium – Montreal, Quebec

E2

Ottawa Rough Riders

17

East

E1

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

13

E3

Montreal Alouettes

16

E2

Ottawa Rough Riders

20

E2

Ottawa Rough Riders

23

W1

Edmonton Eskimos

26

W3

BC Lions

16

West

W1

Edmonton Eskimos

22

W3

BC Lions

15

W2

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

11

CFL Leaders

• CFL Passing Leaders
• CFL Rushing Leaders
• CFL Receiving Leaders^[1]

1981 CFL All-Stars

Special teams

• P – Hank Ilesic, Edmonton Eskimos
• K – Trevor Kennerd, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

1981 Western All-Stars

Special teams

• P – Hank Ilesic, Edmonton Eskimos
• K – Trevor Kennerd, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

1981 Eastern All-Stars

Special teams

• P – Zenon Andrusyshyn, Toronto Argonauts
• K – Bernie Ruoff, Hamilton Tiger-Cats

1981 CFL Awards

• CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award – Dieter Brock (QB), Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian Award – Joe Poplawski (SB), Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• CFL's Most Outstanding Defensive Player Award – Danny Kepley (LB), Edmonton Eskimos
• CFL's Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award – Larry Butler (OG), Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• CFL's Most Outstanding Rookie Award – Vince Goldsmith (LB), Saskatchewan Roughriders
• CFLPA's Outstanding Community Service Award – Ken McEachern (DB), Saskatchewan Roughriders
• CFL's Coach of the Year – Joe Faragalli, Saskatchewan Roughriders

References