1981 CFL season

1981 CFL season
Playoffs
East Champions	Ottawa Rough Riders
West Champions	Edmonton Eskimos
69th Grey Cup
Date	November 22, 1981
Champions	Edmonton Eskimos
← 1980 CFL seasons 1982 →

The 1981 CFL season is considered to be the 28th season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 24th Canadian Football League season.

CFL News in 1981[]

The Eastern and Western Football Conferences, which had carried on as separate and autonomous entities since the founding of the CFL in 1958, agreed to a full merger prior to the start of the 1981 season.

With the merger, the Eastern and Western Football Conferences were dissolved and renamed as the East and West Divisions.

The merger authorized the CFL to have full authority over decisions, including the adoption of a full interlocking schedule for both divisions. All nine teams played each other twice, once home and once away, regardless of their affiliated division. Other than during the three seasons of the CFL's U.S. expansion era from 1993 to 1995, the League's teams have played at least one game home and one away versus every other team in the League since the 1981 season.

In addition, the merger set up the CFL Board of Governors and the CFL Management Council to replace the Executive Committee and the General Managers Committee. After the 1980 season, after owning the team for over ten years, Montreal Alouettes owner Sam Berger retired and sold the team to Nelson Skalbania, who brought in high priced NFL talent who did not adapt to the Canadian game, bringing a terrible losing season to Montreal (they did, however, make the playoffs due to the weak division that year), and with it, a loss of fan support, and he lost money and because of the high priced talent he bankrupted the team. So the team folded after the season, but a year later, a new team, the Montreal Concordes, owned by Expos owner Charles Bronfman, took over the team's players and history.

The East was so weak this season that the Calgary Stampeders, despite being the West's fifth place team, finished with a better record than the second place Ottawa Rough Riders. Ottawa nevertheless upset the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and qualified for the Grey Cup despite winning only five games in the regular season finishing seventh overall.

The ensuing controversy over having a 5–11 team playing in the Grey Cup played a large part in eventually persuading the league to implement a cross-over rule permitting a fourth place team in one division to qualify for the playoffs in place of a third place team in the other division with a weaker record. Nevertheless, the current rule makes no provision to allow a fifth place team to make the playoffs even if its record is better than that of the second place team in the other division, which occurred in 2018.

Regular season standings[]

Final regular season standings[]

Note: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pts = Points

West Division

Team	GP	W	L	T	PF	PA	Pts
Edmonton Eskimos	16	14	1	1	576	277	29
Winnipeg Blue Bombers	16	11	5	0	517	299	22
BC Lions	16	10	6	0	438	377	20
Saskatchewan Roughriders	16	9	7	0	431	371	18
Calgary Stampeders	16	6	10	0	306	367	12

East Division

Team	GP	W	L	T	PF	PA	Pts
Hamilton Tiger-Cats	16	11	4	1	414	335	23
Ottawa Rough Riders	16	5	11	0	306	446	10
Montreal Alouettes	16	3	13	0	267	518	6
Toronto Argonauts	16	2	14	0	241	506	4

• Bold text means that they have clinched the playoffs.
• Edmonton and Hamilton have first round byes.

Grey Cup playoffs[]

The Edmonton Eskimos are the 1981 Grey Cup champions, defeating the Ottawa Rough Riders, 26–23, at Montreal's Olympic Stadium. Edmonton won their fourth-straight championship on a last second Dave Cutler field-goal. The Rough Riders' J.C. Watts (QB) was named the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player on Offence and John Glassford (LB) was named the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player on Defence. The Eskimos' Neil Lumsden (RB) was named Grey Cup's Most Valuable Canadian.

Playoff bracket[]

November 8: Division Semifinals

November 15: Division Finals

November 22: 69th Grey Cup @ Olympic Stadium – Montreal, Quebec

E2

Ottawa Rough Riders

17

E3

Montreal Alouettes

16

E1

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

13

E2

Ottawa Rough Riders

20

E2

Ottawa Rough Riders

23

W1

Edmonton Eskimos

26

W3

BC Lions

16

W3

BC Lions

15

W1

Edmonton Eskimos

22

W2

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

11

CFL Leaders[]

• CFL Passing Leaders
• CFL Rushing Leaders
• CFL Receiving Leaders^[1]

1981 CFL All-Stars[]

Special teams[]

• P – Hank Ilesic, Edmonton Eskimos
• K – Trevor Kennerd, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

1981 Western All-Stars[]

Special teams[]

• P – Hank Ilesic, Edmonton Eskimos
• K – Trevor Kennerd, Winnipeg Blue Bombers

1981 Eastern All-Stars[]

Special teams[]

• P – Zenon Andrusyshyn, Toronto Argonauts
• K – Bernie Ruoff, Hamilton Tiger-Cats

1981 CFL Awards[]

• CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award – Dieter Brock (QB), Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian Award – Joe Poplawski (SB), Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• CFL's Most Outstanding Defensive Player Award – Danny Kepley (LB), Edmonton Eskimos
• CFL's Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award – Larry Butler (OG), Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• CFL's Most Outstanding Rookie Award – Vince Goldsmith (LB), Saskatchewan Roughriders
• CFLPA's Outstanding Community Service Award – Ken McEachern (DB), Saskatchewan Roughriders
• CFL's Coach of the Year – Joe Faragalli, Saskatchewan Roughriders

References[]