"I have loved football as an almost mythic game since I was in the fourth grade. To me, the game wasn't even grounded in reality. The uniform turned you into a warrior. Being on a team, the mythology of physical combat, the struggle against the elements, the narrative of the game..." ~ Steve Sabol (NFL Films)

Monday, February 27, 2023

Flashback to the Proposals for the CFL/XFL Alliance

In what seems like forever ago, there was a moment where CFL fans were worried that the league was on the edge of falling into the abyss when the paper tiger that was XFL 3.0 came courting.  Now that we see that the reality of the new league was all bark and zero bite, it's kind of fun to go back and read the old articles about that time. 

I was one of those guys during those days that was open to the idea, because, let's face it, the CFL is far from out of the woods as the Montreal ownership situation has shown us. But unlike all of the outdoor spring American gridiron leagues, the CFL has survived the other things that would have killed a similar American league. What follows is now pure speculation and fantasy, but hey, perhaps in a parallel universe the leagues did merge and are the dominant gridiron league.


Since the first proposal dropped in March about the coming XFL/CFL alliance, merger, marriage, shack up, or whatever it will be determined to be, there were a lot of people out there in the world who not only gave there opinion, but also went to the drawing board and pulled out pencil and graph paper to figure out just how to build a better future league.  The one person who really has done is homework is my man Argo Fluffy!
As seen below in the image (click to enlarge) he created, he has done the math and has figured out a way to bring the leagues together in a way that combines the best of both and also retains the best of what makes Canadian football special. I, like every other CFL fan, want the three downs to remain, and perhaps it will, but the key to bringing the leagues into harmony is field size. Fortunately, unlike 27 years ago when the CFL first came to America, we have an abundance of soccer specific stadiums that can, like BMO Field, be modified so the field cam be made to fit.  Please tell me what you think and message me here at CFLAmerica to let me know what you think, how wrong we are, or what ideas you have on how to usher in the future while retaining the best of the game from our league... ~ Greg

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