NFL owners discuss increasing field size, can look north to CFL for prime example

For the first time ever, the NFL discussed making the playing field bigger at recent owners meetings, according to Jay Glazer.

“It was brought up, the players have gotten bigger, faster, stronger, and the field hasn’t gotten any bigger,” Glazer reported for The Athletic. “I don’t see anything changing but this is the first year I actually heard about that.”

An NFL field is 100 yards long and 53 yards wide. The CFL configurations are 110 yards long – plus 20 yard end zones at each end – and 65 yards wide. Canadian stadiums were built with the bigger layout in mind while the NFL would have to redo some of its layouts to accommodate an increase in size.

Ideally, the NFL wants to minimize the number of high impact hits on the field. And once again the pro league south of the border is looking north for a potential way to innovate and evolve the game.