2020 CFL season

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2020 CFL season
DurationJune 11 – November 2020
(season cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada)
CFL seasons
← 2019
2021 →
Lions
Stampeders
Elks
Roughriders
Blue Bombers
Argonauts
Tiger-Cats
Alouettes
Redblacks
class=notpageimage|
Locations of the active CFL teams West
East

The 2020 CFL season would have been the 67th season of modern-day Canadian football. Officially, it would have been the 63rd season of the Canadian Football League.

It was originally scheduled to begin on June 11; on April 7, the start of the season was delayed to begin no sooner than July due to the

Winnipeg, Manitoba
, as a "hub city".

On August 17, the CFL announced that the season had been cancelled, citing the league's inability to obtain appropriate loans and subsidies from the federal government in order to cover operating costs and compensate for playing behind closed doors without paid ticketholders. Due to the cancellation of the season, Regina's chance at hosting the Grey Cup game was shifted to 2022.[1][2]

League business

Salary cap

Per the collective bargaining agreement, the 2020

CFL Draft picks were subject to a pay scale starting in this season, with first round picks earning $80,000, at maximum, with the lowest round picks earning a maximum of $75,000.[4][7] All National and Global players signing their first CFL contracts had to sign two-year-plus-an-option contracts while first-year American players had to sign one-year-plus-an-option contracts.[7]

Atlantic Canada expansion

On December 10, 2019, the

Moncton, New Brunswick, while the new stadium was being built, but, as of December 2019, were planning to start play during the 2022 CFL season.[9]

Football operations cap

For the second consecutive season, the league imposed cap regulations on coaching and operations staff, with the total compensation of the combined 11 coaches and 14 other football operations staff being set at $2,588,000.[10] In the same manner as the player salary cap, teams that exceed the cap by up to $100,000 were penalized the same amount they are over and for teams that exceeded the cap by over $100,000, they also forfeited draft picks.[10]

Montreal Alouettes ownership

On January 6, the CFL announced that Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern of Crawford Steel had acquired the Montreal Alouettes; their holding company, S and S Sportsco oversaw the team's operations.[11]

Renaming of the Edmonton Eskimos

On July 21,

Belairdirect had threatened to cut its ties with the Eskimos unless it dropped the name. The team temporarily used "Edmonton Football Team" and "EE Football Team" until a new name was decided.[12][13] The following June, the team announced their new name would be the Edmonton Elks.[14][15]

Media rights

On November 21, 2019, the CFL announced that it had renewed its media rights with Bell Media's TSN and RDS for an undisclosed long-term period.[16] Independent reports indicated that the agreement extended to 2025, adding four additional years to the existing agreement that had been set to expire after 2021; TSN has held exclusive rights to all CFL telecasts since 2008.[17]

Cancellation of the season

The regular season schedule was unveiled on December 16, 2019, a 21-week season initially scheduled to begin on June 11 with a kickoff game between Edmonton and BC.[18] The league continued its larger focus on Saturday primetime games and fewer triple headers, with only one Sunday game (the Winnipeg/Saskatchewan Labour Day weekend game) and three Monday games scheduled. 28 Friday Night Football games (eight double-headers) and 13 Thursday Night Football games were also part of the schedule.[19] The Touchdown Atlantic game was also scheduled to be held between the Argos and Roughriders at Huskies Stadium in Halifax on July 25.[18][20]

On March 12, the CFL cancelled its regional combines in

2020 CFL Draft was held as scheduled on April 30.[23] On March 19, TSN's Dave Naylor reported that the league had ordered the closure of team training facilities.[24]

On March 30, the league announced the indefinite postponement of training camps, which had been scheduled to begin on May 13.[25] In a March 31 interview with CBC Sports, Commissioner Randy Ambrosie stated that the league had been exploring "all options available" and "[wants] to play as much football as we can", explaining that "things are changing so quickly. We're not installing an artificial timetable. We're looking at all the components of what would go into a training camp and what are the compressed scenarios looking like." He added that a complete cancellation of the season would be "devastating financially".[26]

As late as April 7, the league intended to play a full schedule of games. On that day, Ambrosie announced that the start of the season would be postponed until at least the beginning of July.[27] On April 29, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that the CFL had requested financial assistance from the federal government; the league requested $30 million in immediate aid, up to an additional $130 million in the event the season was cancelled entirely, and stated that it planned to pay this back via various initiatives, including "community and public education programs across the country, the use of our digital channels, stadiums and broadcasts for advertising and promotion, and tourism initiatives surrounding the Grey Cup and other CFL events".[28]

On May 14, it was reported that the league and CFLPA were discussing the possibility of holding games at centralized locations.[29][30]

On May 20, Ambrosie announced that the season would not begin until at least September, citing numerous provincial and local bans on large gatherings until at least September 1. He also announced that the Grey Cup would not be held as a neutral site game in Regina as was originally awarded. If held, it was to be played at the home field of the finalist with the better regular season record. Regina's hosting of the Grey Cup was postponed to 2022.[31][32]

On July 21, the CFL announced that it was tentatively pursuing a "hub city" model where all games would be played at a single location, and that Winnipeg (beating a bid by Regina and the Saskatchewan Roughriders) had been selected as the provisional hub city. The league reiterated that a federal subsidy would be required in addition to players' union and public health approval for the hub city proposal to go forward.[33]

On August 16, Dave Naylor reported that the federal government had denied a request by the CFL for a $30 million loan, and that there was a high probability that the season would be cancelled outright.[34] On August 17, Commissioner Ambrosie announced that the season had been cancelled. Ambrosie said that the league had secured union approval for the hub city plan, but was unwilling to take the high-interest loans the government was offering. He added that the league could not play behind closed doors unless the government offered subsidies that the league would not have to pay back (which would compensate for the lack of ticket sales). According to Ambrosie, the government's proposal would have put the league's owners, especially the three community-owned teams, at risk in the long term. Additionally, the Public Health Agency of Canada was unable to provide a timeline for approving the hub city proposal. Ambrosie stated that the league would instead focus on the 2021 season and effectively guaranteed that a 2021 season would be played; this marked the first time the Grey Cup was not awarded since 1919, when a rules dispute, the overall lack of desire to contest for the trophy, and the country's slow recovery from the Spanish flu epidemic led to no game being played that year.[35]

Players were permitted to void their contracts on August 24.[36]

Player movement

Free agency

The 2020

unrestricted free agent.[39][40]
The most prominent signings during the free agency period are listed in the table below:

Team Top 30 Free Agents (CFL.ca rank)[41]
BC Lions Micah Johnson (8)
Calgary Stampeders Sean McEwen (11)
Edmonton
 Mike Moore* (17)
Hamilton Tiger-Cats Ja'Gared Davis* (4), Dylan Wynn* (7), Larry Dean (19), Frankie Williams* (20), Jumal Rolle* (28)
Montreal Alouettes Geno Lewis* (16), Ciante Evans* (29)
Ottawa Redblacks Nick Arbuckle (6), Lewis Ward* (12), Cleyon Laing (13), Don Unamba (21)
Toronto Argonauts Matt Nichols (2), McLeod Bethel-Thompson* (14), DaVaris Daniels (23), Juwan Brescacin (27)
Saskatchewan Roughriders
Shaq Evans* (9), Cameron Judge* (10), Solomon Elimimian* (18), Ed Gainey
* (22)
Winnipeg Blue Bombers Willie Jefferson* (1), Zach Collaros* (3), Darvin Adams* (24)
Free Agents Derel Walker (5), C.J. Gable (30)
Other Derek Dennis (15 - XFL), Chris Streveler (25 – NFL), S.J. Green (26 – XFL)

*denotes the player was re-signed by their original team

NFL window

On December 13, 2019, the CFLPA filed a grievance against the league regarding the NFL window.[42] According to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which was ratified between the league and players in May 2019, all players under contract would be eligible to pursue NFL opportunities for a specified period of time during the offseason. However, the CFL and NFL are not able to come to an agreement on the parameters of this process. The CFL wants all players who do not make the final 53-man NFL rosters to return to their parent CFL club. The NFL however, wants to be able to place these potential CFL Transfer Window players on their practice rosters.[43] At present only players who are not under contract are eligible to work out for, or sign with an NFL team. However, as a show of good-faith many teams granted their players a release from their contracts so they could pursue NFL opportunities.[44]

Global players

Following their introduction in the 2019 season, the league had two active roster spots for players designated as "global" players for each team.[45] Each team also had up to three spots on their practice rosters for global players.[45] Global players are defined as those who do not hold Canadian or American citizenship nor do they qualify as a National player in any other way.[46]

Global combines

The league featured international combines to allocate designated global players to CFL rosters. The league held the first of these scouting combines in

European drafts.[38]

Date Location Player origins Partnering League/Association
January 11 Helsinki, Finland Scandinavia, Northern Europe American Football Association of Finland
January 12 Norrköping, Sweden Scandinavia, Northern Europe Swedish American Football Federation
January 17 Paris, France France French American Football Federation
January 25 Florence, Italy Italy Federazione Italiana di American Football
January 25 Bristol, England United Kingdom British American Football Association
January 26 Frankfurt, Germany Germany, Austria and GFL players German Football League
February 1 Tokyo, Japan Japan Japan National Football Association
February 2 Osaka, Japan Japan Japan National Football Association
February 29 Copenhagen, Denmark Scandinavia, Northern Europe Danish American Football Federation
March 7 Belo Horizonte, Brazil Brazil Confederação Brasileira de Futebol Americano
March 14–15 Mexico City, Mexico Mexico Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional

Coaching changes

Team 2019 HC 2020 HC Notes
Ottawa Redblacks Rick Campbell Paul LaPolice On November 4, 2019, head coach Rick Campbell and the Ottawa Redblacks announced that they were parting ways with Campbell having one year left on his contract.[52] Campbell had been the team's only coach since their inaugural season in 2014, but the team struggled in 2019 after losing many star veteran players and their offensive coordinator shortly before the season began. On December 7, 2019, the Redblacks announced that they had hired Paul LaPolice as their head coach.[53] LaPolice has been coaching with four different CFL teams since joining the league in 2000, and had been the head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 2010 to 2012 (16–28 record, 1–1 in the playoffs).
BC Lions DeVone Claybrooks Rick Campbell On November 6, 2019, the BC Lions announced that DeVone Claybrooks had been relieved of his head coaching duties for the team.[54] Claybrooks completed his first season as head coach of the team in 2019, leading the Lions to a disappointing 5–13 record, including a 0–10 record within the West Division. On December 2, 2019, the Lions announced Rick Campbell as the team's 27th head coach.[55] Campbell had spent the previous six seasons as the head coach of the Ottawa Redblacks.
Edmonton
 Jason Maas Scott Milanovich After much deliberation and speculation, the
Edmonton Eskimos announced on November 27, 2019, that Jason Maas had been relieved as head coach of the team.[56] Maas had spent four years with the team, compiling a 39–33 record and a 3–3 record in the playoffs. However, the team was perceived to have underachieved in the regular season by finishing no higher than third place during his tenure and missing the playoffs in 2018.[57] In the middle of December Scott Milanovich agreed to terms with the Edmonton Eskimos to become their 22nd head coach.[58] Most recently Milanovich had been the quarterbacks coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars (NFL) for the previous three seasons, prior to which he was the head coach of the Toronto Argonauts from 2012 through 2016 (43–47 record), leading the Argos to victory in the 100th Grey Cup
.
Toronto Argonauts Corey Chamblin Ryan Dinwiddie After a lengthy review of the coaching staff, it was announced on December 12, 2019, that
quarterbacks coach for the Calgary Stampeders
from 2016 to 2019.

See also

References

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  3. ^ "New five-year CBA ratified by CFL and CFLPA". cfl.ca. June 13, 2014. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c Staff, 3Down (May 15, 2019). "UPDATED: What we know about the new CBA | 3DownNation". Retrieved November 4, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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  7. ^ a b Dunk, Justin (January 7, 2020). "The comprehensive CFL collective bargaining agreement". 3DownNation. p. 34 – via Canadian Football League. Collective Bargaining Agreement
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  58. ^ "Report: Esks bring in Milanovich as head coach". CFL.ca. December 12, 2019. Retrieved December 12, 2019.
  59. ^ "Ryan Dinwiddie named 45th head coach in Argos history". Toronto Argonauts. December 12, 2019. Retrieved December 12, 2019.