The 2021 CFL season was the 67th season of modern-day

Canadian football Canadian football, or simply football, is a Sports in Canada, sport in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete on a field long and wide, attempting to advance a Ball (gridiron football), pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposi ...

. Officially, it was the 63rd season of the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; , LCF) is a Professional gridiron football, professional Canadian football league in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division (CFL), East Division and f ...

. The regular season began on August 5 and ended November 20. Each team played 14 regular season games over 16 weeks. Previously, the season was scheduled to begin on June 10 and end on October 30, with 18 games being played per team over 21 weeks, but this was delayed due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Canada The COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (). It is caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Most cases over the course o ...

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

hosted the 108th Grey Cup on December 12, 2021.

League business

Resumption of play

The 2020 season was postponed on numerous occasions because federal and provincial governments forbade attendance at sporting events in an effort to stop the

. The league ultimately decided to hold a shortened season in a "bubble" without fans in attendance. However, on August 17, the league called off the season. The federal and provincial governments refused to provide the subsidies needed to cover the expenses necessary for the season to be held. Additionally, public health officials could not guarantee they could approve the league's "bubble" proposal in time to complete the season before Canada's harsh winters set in. At the same time, commissioner Randy Ambrosie guaranteed a return to play in 2021, with fans in attendance at full capacity, without regard to the status of the pandemic by that time.

Renaming of the Edmonton team

On June 1, 2021, Edmonton's CFL team announced that it adopted a new name, the

Edmonton Elks The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division (CFL), West Division and plays their home games at Commonw ...

. The team had previously retired its "Edmonton Eskimos" branding on July 21, 2020, and started to temporarily use "Edmonton Football Team" and "EE Football Team", on grounds that the term ''

Eskimo ''Eskimo'' () is a controversial Endonym and exonym, exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Canadian Inuit, and the Greenlandic Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Sibe ...

'' had been considered an offensive term to refer to

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

Salary cap

According to the new collective bargaining agreement, the 2021

salary cap In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players' salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Seve ...

was scheduled to be $5,350,000 (or an average of $118,888 per active roster spot). That number was subject to change as players would have revenue sharing of 20% from broadcast deals, but could also change due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Individual minimum salaries were set at $65,000 in 2021 for National and American players. Since no 2020 CFL Draft pick signed a contract in the cancelled 2020 season, this was the first season with all

CFL Draft The CFL draft (also known as the CFL Canadian draft, CFL college draft, or the Canadian college draft) is an annual sports draft in which the teams of the Canadian Football League (CFL) select eligible Canadian Football League#Players and compens ...

picks subject to a pay scale, with the first overall pick earning approximately $85,000.

Schedule

The league originally released the season's full schedule on November 20, 2020, which featured a 21-week regular season schedule. The regular season was scheduled to begin on June 10 with a rematch of the 107th Grey Cup with the defending champion

Winnipeg Blue Bombers The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division (CFL), West division. They play thei ...

hosting the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division (CFL), East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home game ...

. Notably, the schedule featured more intra-divisional games, with BC,

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

, and

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

playing 12 such games,

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

and

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

playing 11 divisional games, and the East Division teams playing 10 divisional games (an increase of one to two divisional games per team). This was done to reduce cross-country travel. The

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team based in Toronto, Ontario. The Argonauts compete in the East Division (CFL), East Division of t ...

were scheduled to play a neutral site game on July 19 against the

Calgary Stampeders The Calgary Stampeders are a professional Canadian football team based in Calgary, Alberta. The Stampeders compete in the West Division (CFL), West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The club plays its home games at McMahon Stadium a ...

at a location that was supposed to be announced at a later date. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the league confirmed on April 21 that the season would be delayed until at least August 5, with a revised schedule released on June 15. This version featured 14 regular season games with even more of a focus on intra-divisional games as the Blue Bombers and Redblacks did not play against each other in the regular season and each team played approximately eight divisional games. As the league anticipated capacity limits to be more lenient in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West, or Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a list of regions of Canada, Canadian region that includes the four western provinces and t ...

, the CFL aligned its schedule to have all East division teams begin their seasons at West division opponents for at least the first two weeks of the season. If a game postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak could not have been made up within the regular season schedule, the team(s) affected by the outbreak would be charged with losses by forfeit. If at least 85% of a team's players had received at least one

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifi ...

dose, players received their salary for the unplayed game and the team was credited with a 1–0 win.

Potential partnership with the XFL

On March 10, the CFL confirmed it was pursuing discussions with the consortium that owns the XFL about some form of partnership, the details of which were not made public. The XFL, which was slated to return in 2022 following its abrupt shutdown and sale in March 2020, paused plans to return pending the results of those discussions. The discussions ended on July 7, with no action taken. The XFL subsequently confirmed it would not resume play until 2023 at the earliest.

Global players

After first being introduced for the 2019 CFL season, the league featured two active roster spots for players designated as "global" players for each team. Each team also had up to three spots on their practice rosters for global players. Global players were defined as those who did not hold Canadian or American citizenship nor did they qualify as a National player in any other way. This was subject to change after the cancellation of Global Combines in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 restrictions

Some CFL teams enforced limitations on spectator capacity for their games. Even without capacity restrictions, teams still employed enhanced health and safety protocols, such as increased access to sanitization, paperless transactions and digital tickets. With announcements by the Edmonton Elks and Saskatchewan Roughriders on August 30, all CFL teams announced plans to require that spectators present proof that they are vaccinated for COVID-19, either as the result of a voluntary decision, or as the result of provincial public health orders requiring proof of vaccine (British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec).

Player movement

Signing moratorium

With the 2020 CFL season initially postponed and then ultimately cancelled, the league had placed a moratorium on re-signing players. Teams were able to re-sign players after December 7, 2020, at 12:00 p.m. ET.

Free agency

The 2021 free agency period began on February 9 at 12:00 p.m. ET. Similar to the previous off-season, pending free agents and teams were able to negotiate offers for one week starting January 31, ending February 7. All formal offers to a player during this time would be sent to both the league and the players union and could not be rescinded.

Trade deadline

The in-season trade deadline was on October 27 at 5:00 pm ET.

Regular season

Standings

Postseason

The

Grey Cup The Grey Cup () is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested between the winners ...

was played at

Tim Hortons Field Hamilton Stadium (originally Tim Hortons Field) is a multi-purpose stadium in Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Completed in 2014 with a capacity of 22,500, it was built as a replacement on the same site as the previous stadium, name ...

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Hamilton has a 2021 Canadian census, population of 569,353 (2021), and its Census Metropolitan Area, census metropolitan area, which encompasses ...

, on December 12. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers won their second consecutive championship, defeating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in a re-match 33–25, in overtime.

Playoff bracket

*-Team won in Overtime.

Broadcasting

The CFL was broadcast on TSN and RDS across all platforms in Canada as part of their contract. The broadcast rights were reported to have been extended through 2025.

Award winners

CFL Top Performers of the Week

''Source''

CFL Top Performers of the Month

''Source''

2021 CFL All-Stars

Offence

*QB – Zach Collaros, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *RB – William Stanback, Montreal Alouettes *R – Kenny Lawler, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *R – Eugene Lewis, Montreal Alouettes *R – Bryan Burnham, BC Lions *R – Lucky Whitehead, BC Lions *R – Jake Wieneke, Montreal Alouettes *OT – Stanley Bryant, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *OT – Jermarcus Hardrick, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *OG – Brandon Revenberg, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *OG – Patrick Neufeld, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *C –

Sean McEwen Sean McEwen (born June 27, 1993) is a Canadian professional Canadian football, football offensive lineman for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). University career McEwen played CIS football for the Calgary Dinos ...

, Calgary Stampeders

Defence

*DT – Mike Rose, Calgary Stampeders *DT – Shawn Oakman, Toronto Argonauts *DE – Jackson Jeffcoat, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *DE – Willie Jefferson, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *LB – Adam Bighill, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *LB – Simoni Lawrence, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *CLB – Chris Edwards, Toronto Argonauts *CB – DeAundre Alford, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *CB – Jumal Rolle, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *HB – Cariel Brooks, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *HB – Deatrick Nichols, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *S – Brandon Alexander, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Special teams

*K – Rene Paredes, Calgary Stampeders *P – Richie Leone, Ottawa Redblacks *ST – DeVonte Dedmon, Ottawa Redblacks ''Source''

2021 CFL Western All-Stars

Offence

*QB – Zach Collaros, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *RB –

Ka'Deem Carey Ka'Deem Carey (born October 30, 1992) is an American professional gridiron football, football running back for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played college football for the Arizona Wildcats football, Ar ...

, Calgary Stampeders *R – Kenny Lawler, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *R – Lucky Whitehead, BC Lions *R – Bryan Burnham, BC Lions *R – Kamar Jorden, Calgary Stampeders *R – Nic Demski, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *OT – Stanley Bryant, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *OT – Jermarcus Hardrick, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *OG – Drew Desjarlais, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *OG – Patrick Neufeld, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *C –

, Calgary Stampeders

Defence

*DT – Micah Johnson, Saskatchewan Roughriders *DT – Mike Rose, Calgary Stampeders *DE – Jackson Jeffcoat, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *DE – Willie Jefferson, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *LB – Adam Bighill, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *LB – Darnell Sankey, Calgary Stampeders *CLB – Alden Darby, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *CB – DeAundre Alford, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *CB – Nick Marshall, Saskatchewan Roughriders *HB – T.J. Lee, BC Lions *HB – Deatrick Nichols, Winnipeg Blue Bombers *S – Brandon Alexander, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Special teams

*K – Rene Paredes, Calgary Stampeders *P – Cody Grace, Calgary Stampeders *ST – Mike Miller, Winnipeg Blue Bombers ''Source''

2021 CFL Eastern All-Stars

Offence

*QB – McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Toronto Argonauts *RB – William Stanback, Montreal Alouettes *R – Eugene Lewis, Montreal Alouettes *R – Jake Wieneke, Montreal Alouettes *R – Kurleigh Gittens Jr., Toronto Argonauts *R – Tim White, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *R – Jaelon Acklin, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *OT – Landon Rice, Montreal Alouettes *OT – Chris Van Zeyl, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *OG – Brandon Revenberg, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *OG – Kristian Matte, Montreal Alouettes *C – Peter Nicastro, Toronto Argonauts

Defence

*DT – Dylan Wynn, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *DT – Shawn Oakman, Toronto Argonauts *DE – Ja'Gared Davis, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *DE – David Ménard, Montreal Alouettes *LB – Simoni Lawrence, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *LB – Avery Williams, Ottawa Redblacks *CLB – Chris Edwards, Toronto Argonauts *CB – Jumal Rolle, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *CB – Monshadrik Hunter, Montreal Alouettes *HB – Cariel Brooks, Hamilton Tiger-Cats *HB – Shaquille Richardson, Toronto Argonauts *S – Tunde Adeleke, Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Special teams

*K – Boris Bede, Toronto Argonauts *P – Richie Leone, Ottawa Redblacks *ST – DeVonte Dedmon, Ottawa Redblacks ''Source''

2021 CFL Awards

* CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award – Zach Collaros (QB),

* CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian Award – Bo Lokombo (LB),

BC Lions The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division (CFL), West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place. The Lions playe ...

* CFL's Most Outstanding Defensive Player Award – Adam Bighill (LB),

* CFL's Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award – Stanley Bryant, (OL),

* CFL's Most Outstanding Rookie Award – Jordan Williams (LB),

* John Agro Special Teams Award – DeVonte Dedmon (KR),

Ottawa Redblacks The Ottawa Redblacks (officially stylized as REDBLACKS) (Canadian French, French: ) are a professional Canadian football team based in Ottawa, Ontario. The team plays in the East Division (CFL), East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL ...

* Tom Pate Memorial Award – Mike Daly (DB),

* Jake Gaudaur Veterans' Trophy – Chris Van Zeyl (OL),

* Annis Stukus Trophy – Mike O'Shea,

* Commissioner's Award – Nurse Sara May, Hamilton-area nurse to honour her work during

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pandemic * Hugh Campbell Distinguished Leadership Award – Doctors McCormack and Naidu, CFL Chief Medical Officers * Jane Mawby Tribute Award - Carol Longmuir, director of finance and administration,

References

{{Authority control Canadian Football League seasons 2021 in Canadian football Gridiron football events postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic