Commissioner Randy Ambrosie: tweak to rouge rule being looked at

Photo courtesy: Justin Dunk

One of the CFL’s most unique rules is currently under evaluation.

Commissioner Randy Ambrosie stopped in Saskatchewan over the weekend as part of Randy’s Road Trip where he meets with fans and media across the country. Before meeting with the fans on Saturday, Ambrosie chatted with the CJME/CKOM Green Zone on Friday and said the league’s innovation committee is looking into possibly making a change to how rouges are rewarded.

“In Montreal, the fans talked about the rouge rule. They said they didn’t think you should get a rouge if a field goal is missed and the ball sails through the end zone and literally doesn’t touch the ground,” he said.

“If you are giving up a point because you field it or you could have fielded it and then you decide to give up the point. That is you giving a point away rather than rewarding failure.”

According to Ambrosie, that change had 100 percent support in the room in Montreal.

That doesn’t mean the rouge would be done away with, it just wouldn’t be handed out in this one situation.

“I thought, that kind of makes sense to me. We talked about that at the innovation committee.”

It’s not clear how much support that idea had within the innovation committee, but it is a change that some fans and media have suggested in the past when talking about potential rule changes.

The innovation committee is a busy group lately as they’ve also been looking at changes to the playoff format and potentially bringing in XFL-style video review.