Most Americans know about the National Football League (NFL), but do they know that there is also a Canadian Football League (CFL)? Odds are, if you followed football in the 90s, you probably did as the CFL expanded to the US during the 90s. There would be new Canadian Football teams in the USA starting with the Sacramento Gold Miners in 1993. The next year, the Las Vegas Posse, Baltimore Stallions (also called CFLers), and the Shreveport Pirates came around. Finally in 1995, the Sacramento Gold Miners moved to San Antonio and renamed their team the Texans. The Birmingham Barracudas and Memphis MadDogs also made their debut.
Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, like college football, lack of televised games, and the Stallions winning the 1995 Grey Cup, all US teams either folded or moved to a city in Canada. Since 1996, the CFL consisted of only Canadian teams.
So after hearing a brief history about the CFL's expansion to the US, you would probably think Americans are being their ignoramus selves when it comes to Canadian football. Most of the time, it's true. You can't watch a CFL game in the states because they're only played on TSN, which you can only get in Canada.
So this brings out the question: Which league is better? CFL or NFL?
In my opinion, that question cannot be answered due to numerous differences between the two leagues. Since most people are familiar with NFL rules, I'll go over some basic CFL rules:
A CFL field is 110 yards wide with endzones 20 yards in depth. While an NFL field is about 53 yards wide, a CFL field is 65 yards wide, which increases the area of the CFL playing field (excluding the goal areas) by 35%! A CFL team consists of twelve players as opposed to eleven, but it is more difficult for 12 players to defend a CFL field than for 11 players to defend an NFL field, thus necessitating fewer downs per set of plays (3).
On a typical CFL play, the defensive line must stay at least one yard behind the ball, so the line of scrimmage is MUCH larger in the CFL than in the NFL. Plus, in the CFL, you get awarded one point for simply kicking the ball in the endzone provided that the other team doesn't return it out. This makes games very interesting as some teams will try kicking the ball back and forth at the ends of very close games (e.g. 1972 Western Division Final between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers) to win or send the game into overtime. Also, it is very important to note that a CFL period MUST end on a play. Unlike the NFL, where a quarter ends at 0:00, you will usually see CFL plays start at 0:00.
Bottom line: The playing style is just not the same. Reminiscence of Steve Dangle's rant about NHL 08, it goes something like this:
The CFL is like a really nice foosball table. You look at it and you're like "wow that is a really nice foosball table! You could literally imagine yourself having fun with a friend at foosball!" Ignorant people who think the CFL is the same as NFL only in Canada will say "Hey do you like the CFL's foosball table?" "umm YES!" 'Well here's the same foosball table in the states," and they're really talking about a ping pong table. Your reaction would be, "That's not a foosball table! It's a ping pong table!" While ping pong is also a fun game to play, it's not the same as foosball, and just because you call it foosball doesn't make it foosball.
So why does foosball have singles and ping pong doesn't? BECAUSE THEY'RE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMES! If you order a 5000-square-foot mansion for $10 million, and the real estate agent offers you a 2500-square-foot condo at the same price arguing "well it's still a dwelling!", it's just not right.
So WHY do some people compare the CFL with the NFL saying their league is better? CFL fans are like "oh our league is better because of this and that" while NFL fans are like "oh the NFL rules because yada yada yada." Just quit the childish arguing and take it for granted that you just can't compare the CFL to the NFL!
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