Brouillette’s touchdown shows benefits of not punting

It's no secret that there are significant reasons for CFL teams to go for it on third down instead of punting the ball away. CFL teams tend to convert anything up to third and six over half of the time, and keeping the drive (and the chances of a touchdown) alive often outweighs the benefits of gaining a few yards of field position on a punt or attempting a risky field goal. What's been interesting to watch in recent weeks, though, is how teams have been going for it deceptively with fake punts and field goals rather than straight from-scrimmage plays. If the defence isn't expecting it, you can often pick up much more than a first down this way if you catch them out of position and with the wrong personnel alignment. Here's a key example from Sunday's Calgary-Montreal game, where the Alouettes' Marc-Olivier Brouillette took a fake punt 72 yards for his first CFL touchdown against the Stampeders:

What's impressive here is that this came on a third-and-five well inside Calgary territory, with the Alouettes trailing by 8 and less than a minute left in the third quarter. Many coaches, seeing that down, distance, field position and game situation, would opt for a punt to try and avoid the chances of an easy Stampeders' touchdown that could ice the game. That's probably part of why Calgary was caught so flat-footed here; the punt is the standard decision there, so they clearly weren't expecting a fake.

The fake was superbly executed, too; Brouillette (#10 in the 2010 photo above), typically a linebacker and special-teams blocker/cover man (but a CIS quarterback with the Montreal Carabins), lined up as the up-back, or a blocker behind the line of scrimmage. The snap looked for all the world like it was going to kicker Sean Whyte, who carried on with a perfect air-catch and air-punt to further aid the deception, but Brouillette leaped up, hauled it in and was off to the races. He got two crucial downfield blocks that turned it into a touchdown, but even without those, this would have been a 40- or 50-yard gain. That's effectively the field position you'd gain with a punt in the best-case scenario (good punt, no return, no penalties), but you get to keep the ball.

These plays obviously aren't without risk, as they can be disastrous if the snap goes awry, if the defence figures it out or if someone misses a block. Still, as the Thirty-Six Stratagems dictate, "In any battle, the element of surprise can provide an overwhelming advantage. Even when face to face with an enemy, surprise can still be employed by attacking where he least expects it. To do this, you must create an expectation in the enemy's mind through the use of a feint." That's true in football, too. Montreal head coach Marc Trestman did exactly that last week with this call, and it paid off in a major way. It would be nice to see more of this kind of unconventional thinking take off in the CFL.