Jeff Hamilton
?@jeffkhamilton THREE CFL officials were terminated last season and five were sent back to CIS for more conditioning. CFL says committed to being better.
Glen Johnson isn't one to fool around, I hate to see some people fired, but shows there are consequences
One penalty that’s being dropped relates to offensive linemen. Now they can move their heads or make a signal when they’re in their three-point stance and not be dinged for illegal procedure.
“We had over 100 of those penalties last year, where they moved in a three-point stance,? Johnson said. “It’s an annoying penalty, it does nothing to make the game better.?
What if that move draws the entire defensive line offside? I could see teams starting to use coordinated head bobs to make it look like the line has started to move. So I suspect we’ll see a temporary increase in defensive offside calls. At least until defensive linemen learn to focus on the offensive guys’ hands and feet instead of watching for any movement.
I thought of that, and I feel that the league is using this to increase offense. Now the pressure is on d-linemen not to jump at every head bob. So either they go offsides and keep a drive alive or they hang back, which maybe gives the offense a half-second extra time off the snap of the ball. I also appreciate Johnson's focus on eliminating stupid penalties that don't add anything to the game. Like really, throwing a flag for an effing head waggle is just lame.
Probably not, given that he’s a referee and really doesn’t call that many penalties himself, just some of the ones in the offensive backfield - late hits, holding (some), etc… From what I recall, most of the complaints about flags seemed to be around pass interference and illegal contact - nothing to do with the referee - and illegal roughness, mostly downfield - again, nothing to do with the referee usually.
I predict that this season the hue and cry about the refs will reach epic proportions. Look for more quick fix demands to bring in the CIS guys or even guys from other countries.
There was more stupid annoying penalties called the last couple of years than just the ones on the offensive linemen.
But IMO good officials are hard to find, just like good players are. It takes a special person with intelligence to be able to make those split second calls in any sport.
I never thought I would ever say this, but some female referees might have some of those abilities given the chance.
I was coaching a midget hockey team a couple of the years ago, and we had a woman referee. I thought she called the best game we had all year. She was in charge and had control of the game but let the players play. Again it takes a special person no matter what. Finding them is the hard part.
Je ne sais pas. Ce mouvement était habituellement utilisé par les joueurs de centre pour initier la cadence silencieuse. Comme la LCF a permis l’an dernier aux équipes d’utiliser la cadence silencieuse sans interruption de l’arbitre, j’imagine que la conséquence logique est qu’il soit possible en termes pratiques de l’exécuter. Si on interdit le signal du décompte à la ligne offensive, on la rend à toute fin utile impossible à faire.
Je pense donc qu’on pourrait ne pas assister à une avalanche de punitions pour hors jeu malgré le retrait de cette modalité de la procédure illégale.
If I remember correctly, they allowed only the centre to move his head last year. And yes, the defensive linemen adapted quite quickly to ignore that. But think about the entire offensive line bobbing their heads in unison. That would look very much like the line has started to move, and I could see defensive linemen being fooled quite often, at least at first.
Would the officials have the discretion to call this illegal procedure due to the presumed intent of drawing the defence offside? It might be considered similar to the call where a defence lineman lunges at the offensive line, causing the offensive lineman to jump to protect himself.
I do not think the intent is to allow O-Linemen to use it to induce penalties
They must be set for 1 second(one thousand one) before the snap
"With the goal to reduce the number of penalties called each game, the league has modified the standard for illegal procedure to now allow line players to move slightly, point, or make signals for blocking assignments while in a three-point stance before coming to a set position for one second prior to the snap. This change and others have the potential to eliminate two to three penalties per game."
Translation is the o linemen can do these little movements but not WHEN the ball is snapped, otherwise it's a penalty. Sounds good to me, very reasonable.
The intent may not be there, but I could see teams trying to use it that way. The way this is worded, however - “move slightly, point, or make signals for blocking assignments” - should allow officials some leeway to be able to call a penalty on the offence when the defence is drawn offside by an obvious coordinated move by multiple linemen.