The good, the bad, and the dumb of CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston’s State of the League address

Photo courtesy: Thomas Skrlj/CFL.

The unquestioned main event of Grey Cup week is, of course, the game itself, but like any good event, the undercard is just as important.

That would be the CFL commissioner’s State of the League address. Every year, the commissioner sets aside a block of time to discuss mostly the positive news from the CFL in a given year before taking questions from the media.

This year’s event didn’t feature much in the way of large — or even a small — announcements, as we’ve seen in the past. Just last year, Stewart Johnston used the get-together as a chance to announce the league would be building a new website and mobile app. Perhaps with enough change on the horizon next season, they felt it was time to hit pause on such announcements.  Overall, this year’s address felt relatively safe.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the State of the League.

The Good

One of the hottest topics in the CFL right now is expansion, as the smoke surrounding the league eventually putting a team in Quebec City is getting thicker and thicker.

It wasn’t all that long ago at a State of the League address that then-commissioner Randy Ambrosie announced a conditional franchise for Halifax. Those conditions? Well, they only needed to build a stadium, amongst other minor details. Needless to say, nothing ever came of it, and the league expanding to the East Coast seems just as far away now as it did then.

This time around, Quebec City feels far more likely to happen than Halifax ever has, but the league has declined to say much more than they are working on expansion and that they have had good talks with a possible ownership group. When asked about the situation in French, Johnston, answering in French, admitted that the CFL had erred in the past when it came to premature expansion announcements.

It’s good to see the league learn from past mistakes and make sure they have all of their ducks in a row before making such an important announcement.

The Bad

Another hot topic in the league right now is the turf, with new surfaces either currently being installed or needing to be installed at both Mosaic Stadium in Regina and Percival Molson Memorial Stadium in Montreal.

In Regina, the municipal government made waves by telling 3Downnation that a decision had been made to lay new turf with permanently stitched lines, instead of painting them like just about every other CFL stadium currently does, for cost reasons. Quick turnover between football-related events has also been mentioned as a concern, as well.

This move could effectively force the University of Regina Rams and other amateur football out of Mosaic Stadium. When asked about the decision, Johnston urged the city to reconsider it.

The situation in Montreal seems far less clear, and that’s concerning. The turf at Percival Molson Stadium badly needs to be replaced, as it is even older and likely in even worse shape than the surface at Mosaic Stadium, which has also reached its expiry date. When asked about the surface by 3DownNation at Grey Cup media day, Alouettes president and general manager Danny Maciocia wasn’t sure where discussions were at currently.

The Alouettes are arguably the marquee team in the league at the moment; if they have to play on some kind of makeshift-looking field because a new surface doesn’t come to fruition, that would be a bad look for the league. The timeline to replace these fields is tight due to winter weather in this country; hopefully, there’s a resolution quickly.

The Dumb

Over a year ago, Johnston stood at a podium in downtown Toronto and announced several changes that would be coming to the CFL over the next couple of seasons.

One of those changes was going from a 20-second play clock started by the official to an automatic 35-second play clock. The reason for the change was to improve the flow of games, as the breaks between plays had soared in recent years, sometimes reaching as high as 50 seconds to a minute.

Overall, I believe the clock accomplished what it set out to do in 2026, as we didn’t see nearly as much downtime between plays. Johnston also said as much. What I did find funny is that he admitted that the clock only added, on average, three plays per game.  Frankly, that isn’t an impressive number worth bringing up. I highly doubt anyone is jumping for joy over a game that featured three more plays than it did a year ago.

The fact that that number isn’t higher is probably more on the coaches than the clock itself, as they adjust and figure out ways to play at a faster tempo, which will eventually result in more plays. Hopefully we will see coaches continue to adapt to the new clock now that they have more of an idea of how it works, and Johnston can stand up and announce a larger number in the future. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t say anything.