How to prevent teams from giving up a rouge intentionally

Sorry about that response and welcome to the board. You put a lot of effort in displaying your idea but as you can see teams would likely start missing field goals by intention. However I would not object to it being changed to 2 points instead of 1.

He joined in 2009. I look forward to being welcomed in 2016

:oops:

Really, I would like to see a TD be 8th+1, a FG 4 and a rouge off of FG 1. Having a TD worth more would encourage some more gambling.

Everybody note that the only changes are with rules 2 and 3, for as cited rule 1 matches current rules.

The proposed changes basically encourage the receiving team to either return kicks that they can return or suffer a greater penalty in yardage.

They also encourage more accurate punting beyond only the coffin corner so as to afford the incentive to land the ball in the end zone instead of sailing it through.

In the end you get more strategic punting and more emphasis on the abilities of special teams, so though I am the only other one, I like the proposed changes. :thup:

My heart won’t break any more if there is no change though, as current rules merely afford a consolation incentive for field position as gained as results in a ball going over the goal line from a kick.

The roots of the rule are about as old as those of all football itself.

For you other history buffs, the single/rouge is descended ultimately from early football even before the Football Association’s formation in 1871 (association football aka soccer). Just like in soccer, a similar scoring of a point for a ball kicked over a goal line still exists in other football games like Aussie Rules, Gaelic, and hurling.

oh, and BTW, I have seen platy of games decided by a point or 2...so I see nothing wrong with the rouge.

The Rouge is fine the way it is. Everybody loves the CFL for it’s quirks, it’s what makes the league unique and ours. It also makes for tough coaching decisions, sometimes a team can not give up the point and has to run it out or maybe the point a team gave up in the 1st half is the difference.

The one potential problem I see is teams may try to take a rougue and pin the other team (for a safety and the ball back), when they are in field goal range. Does anyone think teams would take this risk, or just take the safer field goal? I wouldn't want to see the field goal vanish from the game, and would rather see teams intentionally give up the rougue then never kick field goals (although I think it would be an exciting last minute comeback thing to try and kick a rougue, get a safety, and get the ball back and score. Similar to the onside kick). How far can the typical CFL punter punt? (Not holding anything back, because remember to get the best field position they would want the ball to stop at the back corner of the endzone, not bounce out at the one yard line). What distance could punters do this from? For longer kicks where they can barely get in the endzone I suppose they could try to bounce the ball out the side for 1 point and the return team on the 20, but would the return team take the ball on the 20 for in turn giving up 1 point?

I can see this changing a lot, or a little. I wonder how it would play out in a test game? I'm pretty sure the league has test games to try out potential rule changes every year

IMO a minor tweak to the rule would suffice: If a ball into the end zone cannot possibly be returned (because it sails out of bounds without landing in the end zone), no point is awarded. If a ball into the end zone can be returned and the receiving team chooses not to do so, one point is awarded. That would leave things largely as they are now but would eliminate the possibility of cheap rouges that make a mockery of the game, such as a team advancing to the 10-yard line near the end of a tie game and then punting the ball through the end zone for a single. I know it can be argued that if you got the ball down to the 10, you deserve a point if you can kick it through. But would anyone really want to see a Grey Cup decided in such a manner? I wouldn’t.

I don't see the problem with a game being decided with a rouge. What's the difference if the game is decided by 1, 2, or 3 points, nothing really. The rouge has been part of the game since it's beginning, so no need to take it out. I don't like the conceeding part much either, but I'd just suggest what the CIS does and eliminate the concession and make the players return the ball out of the endzone. If you get it out, you get it at the (20?) or where the player was tackled, whichever is greater. Much simpler and would make the game a bit more exciting than someone taking a knee when the ball is kicked into the endzone.

It is not a cheap rouge or hardly a mockery of the game.

The argument is often made that a point for the missed FG is a reard for failure. Now the kicker himself may have failed, but the team as a whole got the ball close enough that a kick would leave over the dead ball line and not possibly be returned. It is not a large reward, but it is a reward for field position. The 1 point is EARNED by the team moving the ball close enough to the goal line. If you do not want to give up a point on a missed FG, don’t let the opposing team get that close to your goal line.

Furthermore, if team A moves the ball to the opponent’s 40, kicks a FG and misses, and the returning team concedes the point, then team B drives all the way down to the 10, misses and gets nothing, then why should team B be penalized that way? They played better, moved the ball further but they get no point. Why should team A get off so easy?

Rouge is fine just the way it is.

:thup: :thup:

I don't understand why some people want to change rules in the CFL that make this game unique? Instead of this desire to change it because you don't like it, why don't you learn to appreciate a game that is older and has more tradition than the NFL.

The NFL has all these stupid rules that they want to change. The CFL is just fine the way it is.

I wouldn’t say any sport is perfect. If the effects were what is hoped, this change would just be very minor.

The CFL should adopt the amateur rule which is used in CIS & High School Football.

Rule 3, Section 2, Article 4

"On any kick from scrimmage (which excludes kick- offs) where the ball enters the end zone, the receiving team being able to successfully advance the ball legally out of the end zone and retain possession, may choose to scrimmage at their own 20 yard line or where the ball becomes dead."

So, kick goes into the enzone, punt or failed field goal, player gets it out to the 1 yard line, they get to scrimmage from the 20. Or they can concede the single and scrimmage from the 35.

This gives the returning team a choice and option. Can they get it out? It rewards good coverage on field goals too. Can you pin them in the end zone? Is conceding a point worth the extra 15 yards of scrimmage? Do you think you can return it more than 20 yards? More than 35? Take it all the way? How important is field position? How important is the point?

I watch a lot of CIS & HS Fball and its an exciting rule adaptation.

:thup:

I’m the only other person okay with the changes because such changes would reward greater punting accuracy and encourage improved special teams play.

I’m not that surprised at the opposition to them given the tradition of the game, but when the same grounds are cited in opposition to proposed changes in the rules of NFL football, I hear howls from some of the same folks.

That’s not a bad idea, but I would not grant a team electing to return the kick the privilege of automatic advances like in amateur Canadian football.

Leave the risk on return as it is, but don’t make it as compelling as in the amateur leagues to give up a point and get all that yardage when the kick could have or should have been returned. Put the burden on the team’s return game in such situations let alone of course reward the coverage for the kicking team and/or the punter’s placement.

I think GoRiders may be on to something here. I would go for the idea that if a PR took a knee or ran out of bounds in the end zone, the ball would only be brought out to the ten yard line. However, If the ball was kicked out or the PR was tackled then the line of scrimmage would be the 25.
They changed the safety rule several years ago, so why not the single point rule. The conceded single point is to much like the fair catch in US football. We like to point to that as boring.

Personally I don’t like that at all. I see your points but I just don’t agree. I like the idea that the returner has to think about how far he might be able to get before he brings it out. I also like it when he thinks he can break one but the coverage stops him at the 4 and the returner has to walk back to the bench with his head down. That’s football. If the CIS rule were introduced to the pros then that decision would be removed. The only rouges would be when the returner just couldn’t get out. Just get across the line and step out at the 2 and you get a free 20 yards and not surrender a point.

And also on the unrelated topic of tradition. If I thought changes to the rouge rules would make the game better, then I would be for them. Tradition has nothing to do with it. Not for me anyways.

The last time that a rules that already worked were messed with was the whole punt out of bounds fiasco. Nobody complained about punting out of bounds 10 years ago. But then Adam Rita was pissed off that teams were punting away from Bashir Levingston. He argued that we were losing excitement even though no fans had been complaining. All of a sudden people started agreeing with him. Rita didn’t care about excitement of the game. He wanted a rule to BENEFIT HIS TEAM. it was totally political. Still there was not enough desire to change the rule. Then in 2006 there was the change in interpretation of the illegal block. A block from the side was then suddenly deemed a block from behind. This KILLED kick returns. Now something had to be done and Rita got his rule put in. But for 2007 they changed the blocking interpretation BACK to how it was before and the big kick returns came back. But was credit for the kick returns given to the change back in blocking interpretation? No, it was given to Adam Rita’s stupid punting out of bounds rule. The kick returns are the same now as they were 10 years ago, only now we have a little less punting strategy. There was nothing wrong with the punting rules. We shouldn’t have messed with them. Also there was nothing wring with blocking from the side being legal. We shouldn’t have messed with it.

Then there is the safety touch. The safety used to mean kicking off from your 25. Conceded safeties were rare occurrences in games heavily affected by weather or strategic (and highly dramatic) gambles late in close games. Then someone had the big idea of moving that kickoff to the 35. With that extra field position, a conceding team could easily give up 2 points to save 3 by kicking off. The conceded safeties would happen at any time with any score and it got very stupid and pointless. There were many calls to eliminate the safety altogether by fans who hated the boring safety. The safety itself is a boring looking play, but the strategy of the safety can be a very dramatic gamble that should not be removed from games. Rather than the rash move of eliminating the safety, all that needed to be done was to go back to the original rule. I’m not sure what took the league so long but they finally moved the safety kickoff back to the 25 and the game cured itself. The original rules of the safety worked perfectly. It should have never been messed with.

Learn from this. There is nothing wrong with the rouge. It works very well in every instance. Don’t mess with it.

The league recently added a rule to penalize teams for punting the ball directly out of bounds (i.e. no bounce) between the twenties. Is that really that much different than adding a rule to not give a point to the kicking team for kicking it directly out of bounds through the end zone? Personally, I could live with this rule change. It would reward punters for their accuracy, while removing the perception of rewarding the field goal kicker for shanking a chip shot.

But I also could live with the rouge rule exactly like it is.