NFL should learn from CFL’s outstanding coronavirus policy in 2021

Canadian Football League (Wikimedia Commons)

Historically, the Canadian Football League has tried to be different from the National Football League. They have three downs compared to the NFL’s four downs, bigger footballs, a wider football field, and a point (called a rouge) for an unsuccessful field goal.

As the CFL began its 2021 regular season on Thursday with a Grey Cup rematch from 2019 between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, there are new coronavirus rules that are further making the CFL different from the NFL. According to the Canadian Press,  if a CFL game this season is cancelled because of coronavirus and the game cannot be rescheduled, the team that is experiencing coronavirus problems will lose 1-0. Also, if less than 85% of the players on a team are not vaccinated once and that team was the cause of a game being cancelled, the players will not be paid.

For those that have taken coronavirus seriously, the rules are brilliant, and CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie deserves high praise. The problem that the CFL is facing however is that the coronavirus rules are different from province to province. For example, the province of British Columbia seems to be taking coronavirus more seriously than the province of Alberta, which creates further issues of inconsistencies that the CFL will be facing.

The coronavirus rules that the CFL is trying to implement were absent in the National Football League a year ago. There is no doubt that covid seriously impacted the NFL last season.  Among the teams impacted included the Baltimore Ravens, the San Francisco 49ers and Tennessee Titans. If the NFL had instituted a similar policy to what the CFL is implementing this season, players and teams would have taken coronavirus more seriously. As the 2021 NFL season is about to begin, the NFL should follow the CFL’s outstanding lead, and make sure players and organizations are seriously penalized if players are not  vaaccinated.

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