Count CFL player agent Chris Lambiris – and some of his clients – among those casting a concerned eye on at least one of the league’s upcoming changes.
The Canadian Football League announced April 28 an expanded playoff format that will see eight of its nine teams qualify starting in 2027 and a fourth round of games added, with the eventual Grey Cup champion required to win and least three games and possibly as many as four.
“When I talk to my players in the league they’re not the biggest fan of it,” Lambiris told the Rider Broadcast Network in a pre-season interview.
“Obviously any time you add more games, especially having first versus second in the first round, it adds to injuries potentially and just takes more of a toll on the body.”
And on first-place divisional finishers, who will no longer receive a first-round bye when the new system comes into effect.
“It doesn't feel like a reward,” Lambiris — whose clients include Calgary Stampeders quarterback Vernon Adams Jr., Toronto Argonauts pivot Chad Kelly, and Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker Tyron Vrede — continued. “Generally you want to get that rest in the first week of the playoffs, let the other teams kind of beat each other up and you get that bye week and then you go into Week 2 rested and potentially not play a stronger team. Whereas right away (under the incoming format), you’re potentially having Grey Cup matches in the first week.
“Everybody's just going to pin their ears back and it's going to be such a physical game.”
Another potential impact could see players hit in the wallet if playing time bonuses in their contracts are not triggered.
“You're going to see potentially coaches sitting players that normally would be played and does that affect their bonuses? Does that affect that play-time bonus? What does Week 16 look like, 17, 18?” Lambiris questioned.
“If you're finishing eighth and ninth is nowhere near making it, then what are the last three weeks looking like in the CFL and are those games even meaningful? Are players being healthy scratches?
“I think there's more of the story that players just don't know what that looks like, and you really won’t know until it unfolds.”
Lambiris also questioned the timing of the league’s announcement, which was released publicly the morning of this year’s Canadian draft.
“They come out with the changes the same day the CFL draft comes out. It’s like why would you steal the thunder from those USports players on the biggest day potentially of their career?” he said.
But for all the incoming changes to the Canadian game, both this year and next, Lambiris says he also understands the need for the league to evolve.
“I am more traditionalist ‘cause I love the game and I love how it's been ran, what's been going on for the last how many decades in the CFL. But at the end of the day we do have a shift in demographics and I don't know if the younger generation is watching more CFL,” he said.
“They're hardcore NFL fans, they’re in NFL fantasy football, they’re flying out to NFL games, and I don't know if I feel that same culture exists in the CFL with the 20 and 30-year-old fans that are coming up. So as much as you want to be traditionalist for the die-hard CFL fans, I think you have to make these changes to get these 20, 25 year olds through the gates, getting them into CFL stadiums and becoming big fans so that's gonna sustain the CFL for the next decades forward.”
