It's still hard to understand, and like I said I may be way off base. If the way you are describing it is true what is the point? Every team met this last year without trying did they not?
Yes... what is the point? Ask Ambrosie. It would sure be a lot better if that pie-in-the-sky guy would tell us the "plan" or the "whys" of all his crazy new rules. What are we trying to achieve overall with all this complication? We're just left to guess...
Yes, as for starting, I bet every team met the roster rules. However, for DI's and replacements/subbing, I bet they did not.
I really think
the biggest result of this is you can't sub a DI in for a DEFANAT, well, unless that DI is himself a FAKENAT (but not a DEFANAT). That means that you need to have enough FAKENATs and NATs on the roster to fill in for *real* injured DEFANATs. This should have teams roster more vet Americans. So it's a win for them.
When I read the CFLPA memo on this, it seemed to suggest that the 3 Designated Americans would be allowed to substitute for an injured Canadian starter.
No.
Any FAKENAT (and teams will have more than 3) can sub in for an injured NAT! This is a fact, as it's precisely this point that KW worried about being abused, and precisely this point that Ambrosie threatened the wrath of God on.
The magic 3 number just has to do with the 7/10 magic numbers. 3 of your FAKENATs will be special DEFANATs you designated for each game. And those 3 spots must remain filled with either DEFANATs or NATs; or I suppose, if injured, any FAKENAT. KW's examples explained this pretty well.
The league has done a complete crap job explaining all of this. It's pitiful.
I think it will happen through a "chain substitution", but this is speculative on my part. So, to make up an example: If our d-line starter is Jake Thomas and one of our designated Americans is Jeffcoat, and or American DI is McAlister. Jake gets injured, and we have Jeffcoat "sub in" for him as a starter under this replacement provision. McAlister can then come onto the field as a "sub" for Jeffcoat. Alternatively, Craig Roh, as a 3 year vet, could be the sub instead of McAlister.
The "chain substitution" is an interesting point. I'm not positive how they'll handle that, but I'm pretty sure it'll work just like it did with the previous 7-NAT rule. For instance, the crazy subbing we did changing our Thomas/Kongbo and sometimes Jones#0 as DB will probably still be allowed, it'll just get even more complicated now. Heaven help the ref or spotter whose job it is to keep track of all this every snap!! Hell, heaven help MOS's asst he puts in charge of keep this all straight. Someone is going to screw up...
This is also how I envision this working. More likely your other scenario (Roh subbing), though, since as I understand there is no limit to the number of designated vets you can have, as long as 3 are on the field (or 3 extra Nats)
Nope.
It's 2 new classes: the designated 3 (DEFANATs) and all the other vet-qualifying FAKENATs. But you are correct in one respect, there is no limit to the quantity of FAKENATs. Heck, you could have every American on your roster be an old fogey FAKENAT. But only 3 will be the magic starters for the new 3+7=10 ratio.
One downside of this rule is it decreases the opportunities for fringe Natl. starters such as Jesse Briggs and Petermann to get into games, injury replacements will now be filled by Import players whenever possible.
This is possibly true. I guess it may boil down to who is more expensive and who you roster more of. You still have the max number of IMPs on the AR. It may turn out your backup NAT WR is better than your 34y.o. IMP WR... KW already said it makes picking and optimizing rosters way harder.
Yes and no...you can choose to use one of the new designated Nationals in their spot, but you will still need a player to replace that guy if he leaves his position as generally these guys who meet the tenure time in the CFL generally are all going to be your starters anyway
Yes. However, let's say you had Adams starting as 1 of 3 DEFANAT. Your ELC and <3 year development guys cannot sub in for him nor come in if Adams is injured. That could mean you hire someone like Arcenaux, Bowman or Matthews just to sit around to come in for Adams. Assuming you think those has-beens would be better than Petermann...
So
this could increase the hiring of lower-priced aged vets, and that could be the "why" to the whole thing.
An are though where I could see it benefiting is o-line where you could most likely roster an import back-up as he can cover both the import spot if an injury, or in our case Bryant or Hardrick could become a Canadian if one of the nationals gets hurt and the back up import comes in
KW made a similar point, but it's backwards to yours. Under these new rules, you'd have your 2 DEFANAT OL starters (Hardrick/Bryant) and you'd have a realNAT backing them up. And that's precisely what we do already so in that sense
WFC is already 2/3rds covered in complying with the new rule!
If anything,
this makes carrying a backup IMP OL near impossible... unless that IMP OL is a FAKENAT (new 3/4-year rule). So forget about development IMP OL guys!
Maybe I'm still not getting it. You still have to have 7 Nats on the field minimum, no? If so, it's status quo.
Yes, 7 realNATs on the field minimum. The 10 is really a misnomer and the whole thing is badly worded.
So if a starting Nat MLB goes down, you can fill that with a vet import MLB but another Canadian will have to displace an american elsewhere in order to get at least 7 on the field.
You almost got it!! Just delete your "displace" qualifier. If your NAT MLB goes down, you can fill in his spot with any of the (probably 5-10) FAKENATs (not even DEFANATs!) you have. You don't need to displace anyone or bring in another NAT anywhere! That's the "abuse" possibility.
Hell, this insanity alone will probably entice Chris Jones back to the CFL! He'll find a way to field 12 Americans on the field at all times! On both sides of the ball!
But isn't it such that no matter what, in the end you still have a minimum of 7 Canadians on the field?
No. You start with 7 starting NATs. But if 1 of those 7 gets injured, you start subbing in FAKENATs. You could end the game with 0 realNATs on the field! I'd love to see Ambrosie's head pop off then! If you always still had 7 NATs on the field, there'd be no room for abuse and no one would be complaining at all and Ambrosie wouldn't have had to threaten the HC's like he did.
I suppose the challenge is then to either have enough designated vets to fill the 3 roster spots + account for possible injury, have enough extra Nats + account for injury, or some combination of these (most likely the scenario, with vets becoming a commodity)
But they fill-in guys won't be "designated" (DEFANATs).
Only the 3 starters are "designated". All the other vet IMPs are just undesignated FAKENATs (UDEFANATs??).
This is the same stumbling block I had...
only 3 are designated. Only 3! No others are "designated".
So it's injury situation that is the issue from a planning perspective, as there is a loss in flexibility. If anything, it sounds like fringe Canadians might get more of a shot. If, for example, Lawler went down, we wouldn't have any backup american receivers who meet the designated vet criteria, and so, say, Petermann gets time on the field where he might not if Woli and Demski stay healthy.
Lawler is a bad example. For all of this FAKENAT craziness, just ignore all the young Americans. None of these new rules apply to any of the young American spots (like Lawler). This only applies to the 3-4 year guys. You can still sub in a NAT anywhere on the field for anyone, so Petermann could sub in for Lawler, but this is the same as last year. You can also sub in a DI for a young IMP.
You cannot sub in a FAKENAT for a young IMP.
You are 100% right that "there is a loss in flexibility", but only for those 3 new starting positions.
Phew!
In the end, I think KW is right and we'll play these new rules without really any change to what we were doing anyhow. 2 of your 3 DEFANATs are OL, sub in a NAT if they get hurt. Maybe make Adams your 3rd of 3 DEFANATs. Adams gets hurt you put in Petermann. Before you might have put in Grant, but now you wouldn't be able to. Or, if we go all-IMP D, make your 3rd of 3 your weakest DB. If your DEFANAT DB gets injured, you put in your NAT (Hecht or Jones#0) at FS and shuffle the spots around if you need to.
The only reason you'd plan something new and crazy is if you wanted to abuse the new rules. You could hire the cheapest junkiest NATs for ELC and find a way to fake injuring them early every game.
