Eliminating or realigning the CFL’s divisions is being discussed, but it shouldn’t be

The CFL's East Division is in crisis, with its teams a combined 4-13 so far (and 2-11 against the West) and occupying spots 6-9 in our power rankings. It's not the first time that's happened, either; except for the Montreal Alouettes' continued success and the Toronto Argonauts' 2012 Grey Cup, the division's largely been a weak spot over the last decade-plus. The East's struggles this year have been even more prominent than usual, though, and that's led to some pieces proposing the idea of eliminating the divisions and moving to a single league table. Here's one, from Kirk Penton of The Winnipeg Sun:

There's some merit to the idea, of course. As Penton points out, if the season ended this week, you'd have one of the 1-3 East teams receiving a first-round bye and another one hosting a playoff game against a 2-2 Saskatchewan team crossing over, while 2-3 B.C. would miss the playoffs entirely. That doesn't seem particularly fair. However, this is still early in the season, and the East has only played six home games so far to the West's 14; there will be plenty of further East on East games, too, which should allow at least some of those teams to pick up more wins. It seems highly unlikely that they'll all be terrible for the entire season.

What would removing divisions mean from a practical standpoint? Yes, the idea of the top six teams making the playoffs regardless of geography sounds appealing, but it seems unlikely it would actually change much. The CFL's crossover rule means that the fourth-place team in one division can take the playoff spot of the third-place one in the other division if it has a better record. Thus, four of the six playoff spots are currently available for the West's five teams; a divisionless format would only make it possible for one extra West team to make it in, and that would only happen under unusual circumstances. This only even changes things slightly because it's a nine-team league now; when the league had eight teams, the same teams would have made the playoffs regardless of if divisions were included or not (thanks to the crossover rule). All divisional elimination would accomplish from a standpoint of who makes the playoffs would be allowing for the fifth-place team in the West to make the playoffs if they had a better record than the second-place team in the East. That seems highly unlikely to ever happen, but it could also be solved without eliminating divisions simply by providing for a double crossover.

Sure, eliminating divisions would also alter the playoff seeding a bit, but it's not like that's currently a huge problem either. Yes, the East has been consistently worse than the West over the last decade-plus in terms of teams' overall records and interdivisional records, but it's typically had a couple of strong teams at the top. Consider 2012: the East as a whole was 32-40 and 12-20 against the West, but Montreal finished 11-7 and 6-2 against the West, and Toronto went 10-8 (3-6 against the West, but they beat a West team in the Grey Cup). Or look at 2013, where the East was also 32-40 and 12-20 against the West as a whole, but had 11-7 and 10-8 teams (Toronto and Hamilton), plus a team with a winning record against the West (Toronto, 5-3) and one with a tying record (Montreal, 4-4). East teams have won three of the last five Grey Cups, too, so it's not like there's a strong case for shutting them out of the game, and if the West is so much better than the East, wouldn't we be likely to see a crossover team make it to the Grey Cup? That's never happened since the rule's inception in 1996. Only six teams have ever crossed over at all, and only two of them have won their first-round game. Yes, all the crossovers have been West to East, so the West division has again demonstrated more depth, but West bottom-feeders haven't yet proven able to knock off the class of the East.

Beyond all that, there are excellent reasons to maintain the status quo. First off, there's the history involved. The West and East divisions predate the official formation of the CFL and were initially separate leagues, the Western Interprovincial Football Union (WIFU) and Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU) respectively. This is a league that proudly embraces its history, and maintaining those divisions is a nod to that; it also allows for each club to play more games against nearby historic rivals, valuable both for drawing fans and keeping costs down. (It's notable that Winnipeg chose to move back to the West this year; that's tougher competition from a football standpoint, but it sent the Bombers back to their historic roots and provided them with more easily-marketable games against rivals like Saskatchewan. It's worked out fine on the field so far too, with Winnipeg off to a 4-1 start.)

The divisions also are linked to historic individual trophies, with the winner from each division competing for the overall CFL award, and they're key to divisional all-star selections. Removing divisions would require massive change of a whole raft of CFL procedures and divorce the league from some of its most important history, and it wouldn't really accomplish much in return. The plan would produce slightly different playoff seeding, perhaps lead to a few West on West Grey Cups, and maybe once in a very great while lead to five western teams and one eastern one in the playoffs; is that really worth getting rid of CFL history, reducing the numbers of games against historic rivals, increasing travel costs and rewriting award procedures? From this corner, no; the idea's a fine talking point, but it should remain just that.