2022 CFL Season

The 2022 CFL season is scheduled to be the 68th season of modern-day Canadian football. Officially, it will be the 64th season of the Canadian Football League. The regular season is scheduled to begin on June 9, 2022, and end on October 29, 2022, with 18 games being played per team over 21 weeks. Regina is scheduled to host the 109th Grey Cup on November 20, 2022.

CFL news in 2022

Collective Bargaining Agreement

The three-year agreement that was ratified between the CFL and CFL Player's Association will expire just prior to this season, on the first day of scheduled training camp in 2022 (likely in May, 2022). Topics should include compensation, player safety, and revenue generation following two seasons heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. The 2021 salary cap for an 18-game season was set at $5,350,000 with minimum salaries set at $65,000 for National and American Players and $54,000 for Global Players.

Schedule

The league released the season's full schedule on December 16, 2021, just four days after the 108th Grey Cup, which returned to an 18-game schedule following a pandemic-shortened 2021 CFL season. The regular season is scheduled to begin on June 9, 2022, with the Calgary Stampeders hosting the Montreal Alouettes. The Grey Cup rematch game between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Hamilton Tiger-Cats does not occur until week 3, which is the first time since 2018 that this game was not featured in week 1 of the regular season. Similar to the planned 2020 CFL season and the schedule from 2021, this year will again feature more intra-divisional games, with BC, Calgary, and Edmonton playing 12 such games, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg playing 11 divisional games, and the East Division teams playing 10 divisional games. This was done to reduce cross-country travel.

The schedule will feature all intra-divisional matchups in the last two weeks of the regular season. This year also features more home-and-home matchups, with every team having at least two and Saskatchewan, Toronto, and Ottawa having five of these matchups. The Toronto Argonauts are scheduled to play a neutral site game on July 16, 2022, against the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Raymond Field, in Wolfville, Nova Scotia; with the stadium capacity being increased from 3,000 to 10,000. This will be the first CFL match held in Atlantic Canada since the 2019 season. All previous regular season games of the Touchdown Atlantic series were held in Moncton, New Brunswick. Tickets for the match sold out in less than one hour.

Rule Changes

On April 27, 2022 the league announced a series of rule changes with the intention of improving game flow, and increasing offensive production.

* Narrowing of the field hashmarks from 28 yards from the sidelines instead of 24, making them nine yards apart instead of 17. This will centralize the offense in the middle of the field increasing the effective space the defense will have to cover.
* Increasing the no-yards penalties on punts from a 5-yard penalty to a 15-yard penalty. Previously special teams were willing to take a five yard penalty in order to prevent a longer punt return.
* Changing the starting location of the offense. Kickoffs will be moved back from the 35-yard line to the 30-yard line. After a field goal or a single rouge the team that was scored on can now scrimmage from the 40-yard line instead of the 35 yard line. Both of these changes will have the effect of enabling the offense to start their drives closer to the opposition endzone.
* Punting teams will also be penalized for any ball that goes out of bounds before the opponent’s 20-yard line, instead of the 15-yard line.
* A 'communications coordinator' from the officiating department will be on the sidelines of each team to enable faster communication between head coaches and on field officials.
* Expansion of the types of plays the Command Centre can review without requiring a coach’s challenge or an officials’ huddle (possession rulings, boundary rulings and administrative rules such as a formation without an end or ineligible receivers downfield)
* Teams will be allowed to have two quarterbacks on the field at one time to allow for creative play calling.
* Penalties that occur at the end of the first or third quarters may be applied to the start of the next quarter.
* Quarterbacks who “fake” giving themselves up will be assessed an objectionable conduct penalty.
* Automatic ejection of any player for two unnecessary roughness or objectionable conduct penalties.

Player movement

Free agency

The 2022 free agency period officially began on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, at 12:00 p.m. ET. Pending free agents and teams were able to negotiate offers for one week starting Sunday, January 30, 2022, and ending Sunday, February 6, 2022. All formal offers to a player during this time were sent to both the league and the players union and could not be rescinded.

Regular season

Standings

Broadcasting

The CFL will continue to be broadcast on TSN and RDS across all platforms in Canada as part of their current contract. The broadcast rights are reported to have been extended through 2025.

References

{{CFL seasons

Canadian Football League seasons
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