Five storylines from the CFL season so far

The CFL season's reached its halfway point, so it's a good time to look back at what's happened so far. Here's an examination of the five biggest CFL storylines to date.

The return of the East: Most recent CFL seasons have seen the West Division be stronger top-to-bottom than the East, and that was particularly the case last year. The East's teams started a combined 4-13 and were 6-23 near the end of August. They improved down the stretch, but still just finished 28-44. This season's been much stronger for the East so far, which can claim to be better than the West so far in both overall record (21-12 versus 19-25) and in top-to-bottom records (the West has teams at 0-9, 3-6 and 3-5, while the East's worst team by record is 4-5 Montreal). The East is also 15-9 against the West, which puts it on pace to record the first winning record in interdivisional play since 2004. Will that hold up over the rest of the season? We'll find out, but as of this moment, we're on track to see the first-ever East to West crossover in the playoffs.

The improvement in scoring: Last year saw one of the lowest-scoring seasons in recent CFL history, leading to an offseason of angst and rule changes to try and improve the situation. The situation's much better this year; CFL games are averaging 49.9 points per game this year, a 10 per cent improvement over last season's 45.5. Some of that's thanks to improvements in offensive yards (the average team is picking up 344.3 yards per game versus 292.6 last year) and passing yards (270.3 versus 213.8), but another big part is defensive scoring; we've seen 22 defensive touchdowns this year, on pace to break the 2004 record of 43.

Quarterback injuries: Remarkably, that improved passing production has come despite incredible numbers of injuries to some of the league's top quarterbacks. Toronto's Ricky Ray has missed the entire season to date, while Edmonton's Mike Reilly, Saskatchewan's Darian Durant and Montreal's Jonathon Crompton and Dan LeFevour were all hurt early on and haven't returned yet (and some, such as Durant, are likely done for the year). Saskatchewan's Kevin Glenn was put on the six-game injured list in late July and Winnipeg's Drew Willy is now out for 6-8 weeks. We've seen some backups step up and play well, including Toronto's Trevor Harris and Montreal's Rakeem Cato, but the numbers of QB injuries are still significant. That may be part of why scoring, while up, isn't as high as the 52 points per game it was at through the first two weeks.

Attendance, TV ratings and close games: After a dismal start, CFL attendance has picked up. The league's currently averaging 25,194 fans per game, well ahead of the 24,756 mark we saw at the end of July and not far behind last year's 25,286. With big Labour Day matchups ahead, attendance should only rise from here on in. Fans are seeing a lot of close games, too; 18 of 40 games (45 per cent) have been within one to four points this season, and only 18 were within that margin all last year. However, the close games haven't translated into good TV numbers, which have been generally down. Part of that is the success of the Blue Jays, who have been particularly strong in head to head matchups against the CFL; another part of it's discussed below. The ratings aren't too concerning for the CFL directly, as they're locked into a TV deal with TSN through 2021, but the league will certainly be hoping that they don't decline too drastically and that they don't indicate falling interest in Canadian football. We'll see how this goes over the rest of the year.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders: When CFL TV ratings drop, a frequently-cited cause is poor performance by the Roughriders, regularly the league's most popular team by viewership numbers. It's hard to think of a poorer performance than what Saskatchewan's done this year; an 0-9 start saw them fire their head coach and general manager this week. Roughriders' ratings have still been some of the strongest across the league, and they produced the league's top rating this year (864,000 viewers vs. Toronto on Aug. 8) but they're down from what they were. Saskatchewan's performance (or lack thereof) is also a big part of why the West's been so bad against the East. Will the Roughriders make some progress under new management, or will this season continue to be a nightmare for them? We'll find out in the second half.