Apologize if this has already been discussed. Did a search and got nothing but know I saw related comments earlier.
The crossover did not work well this year imo.
Ended the season for Toronto and Montreal in September. The back to back at the end of the year would have been far more intense had there been a playoff spot on the line and Montreal was actually playing pretty well at time and could have gave Hamilton a good game in the semi final imo. The Manzeil hype alone would have been something the CFL could use in those markets.
ESF wasn’t close in the end so would it have mattered. Puts more emphasis back on the regular season in the west.
Guessing the playoff format will be reviewed if and when the league expands and hope to see the crossover format eliminated at that time. It was an idea that made some happy at the time but was never really effective. A desperate attempt to appease.
Going back, the best of 3, and 2 game total point era were golden. Gone like leather football helmets now but still a few memories remain.
Would have been an even greater scramble for playoff spots without divisional seedings at all, allowing Edmonton, BC, and Hamilton all to fight for the final spot, and allowing the Bombers, Redblacks, and Roughriders all to fight for byes and home playoff spots.
But I also hope that if the league gets a Halifax team on board they go back to a format that emphasized divisions more, both in the regular season and playoffs. I’d be happy with no crossover if the divisions were equal in size and if the teams played the bulk of their games against their own division.
Once the divisions are even the crossover will hopefully not have to be implemented very often.
You’d have to have three teams in one division finish in worse shape than the fourth place team in the other division. Doesn’t seem too likely outside of the oddball year.
Might come up a lot at first, as an expansion team might have some growing pains.
Until the league gets to 10 teams, I think they should modify the seeding for teams. Apologies if I’ve already said this in another thread:
Keep divisions and division-winners get a first-round bye. The rest of the teams are seeded 3-6, regardless of division. In this previous year’s example, all four western teams would have qualified. 2nd place SSK would have hosted 5th place EDM and 3rd place Winnipeg would have hosted 4th place BC. Since Calgary’s record was better than Ottawa’s, they would host the lowest remaining seed.
Assuming Hamilton had actually tried in their last game and won, they would have finished 9-9 and tied with BC and Edmonton. In common games played, they had the following records:
Hamilton 3-1
BC 3-2
Edmonton 1-4
Based on winning percentage, Hamilton finishes as the higher seed and as fifth seed, BC as sixth seed, and Edmonton still misses the playoffs. SSK hosts BC, WPG hosts HAM.
Given the number of inter-divisional games, I think this would be a better reward of a playoff format. The problem for traditionalists is that you’d have to do away with “East Champion” and “West Champion” since there’s a much better chance of a team in an opposite division winning those titles.
So you want to keep the divisions, get rid of the crossover, and play a third game against a pair of teams from the opposite division so that you only have play each of the teams in your own division twice?
