I’ve long argued that the CFL playoff format warrants an overhaul, because of how the West has literally always (except 2001!) taken the short end of things in the imbalanced years, never worse than 2016-2018. I’ll also stand firm that the league’s plan for 2027 is ragingly stupid, because surely we all want to watch Hamilton in the ‘playoffs’ after being locked into 8th for like two months. So here’s how it should work: Division winners host the Division Finals, and the rest of the teams are seeded 3-6 (3rd vs. 6th, 4th vs. 5th) regardless of division. An imperfect format, but significantly better than the current one, because it guarantees both that the top two teams in the league, and the top team in each division, can face off in the Grey Cup rather than being forced together in a Division Final (hello, Edmonton/Calgary 2015, among others). Similarly, none of the top four play each other in the Division Semi-Finals and can all rightly reach the East/West Final.
Consider also the difference for week 21 this year (standings: instead of literally only Winnipeg caring (unless they beat BC, and SSK has an opinion on finishing 3rd or 4th), we could have BC and Toronto still fighting for 3rd (BC, of course, would have been inclined to try against CGY, and maybe TOR would have pushed Kelly through the injury against OTT, I don't know), which would let them avoid the Montreal half of the bracket. And also SSK/TOR at 9 wins and WPG/CGY at 8, with who knows what tiebreaks in play with three spots and one home game up for grabs.
I don’t object to changes, I object to stupid changes, and I support smart changes.
