Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Happy New Year!

There is an indication that after finishing their regular season 3-13 the Montreal Alouettes lost an Eastern Conference semi-final playoff game 20-16 to the Ottawa Rough Riders.

How did a team with such a poor regular season record qualify for the playoffs?

Thank you.
Nick

I remember watching the CFL on Channel 9 (Windsor, Ontario) back then. IIRC the 1981 season was the first when the two conferences (East and West) merged and a playoff system included the top 3 teams in each conference, regardless of record. That may have been the year Ottawa (I think) played in the Grey Cup final despite winning only 5 or 6 games all season.

Yes, Ottawa played in the Grey Cup despite finishing 5-11. They probably should have used a wild card playoff system instead of the top 3 teams regardless of record making the playoffs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_CFL_season

In the "modern era" (1946-onwards) teams with losing records have made the playoff a whopping 80 times. And teams with a .500 record 54 times.
Three teams with losing records have won the Grey Cup - 2000 BC (8-10), 2001 Calgary (8-10) and 2016 Ottawa (8-9-1). And all three teams accomplished this since the adoption of the "crossover" rule in 1996.

Four teams - 1988 Winnipeg, 1989 Saskatchewan, 2012 Toronto and 2017 Toronto won the Grey Cup with .500 records during the regular season.

RichardBak wrote: ↑Thu Jan 01, 2026 1:56 pm I remember watching the CFL on Channel 9 (Windsor, Ontario) back then. IIRC the 1981 season was the first when the two conferences (East and West) merged and a playoff system included the top 3 teams in each conference, regardless of record. That may have been the year Ottawa (I think) played in the Grey Cup final despite winning only 5 or 6 games all season.

The Eastern league (IRFU aka Big Four) and Western league (WIFU) merged in 1958 to become the CFL and an interlocking schedule was introduced in 1961.

Canada's population is such that the CFL has had, at most, 9 Canadian teams. There were some US teams in the 1990's, but I digress.

Anyways, it is true that the 5-11 Ottawa Rough Riders made the playoffs by virtue of finishing a distant second to the 11-4-1 Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the East Division. Ottawa did beat Hamilton in the East Final 17-13 and almost beat the dynasty Edmonton Eskimos in the Grey Cup. That Ottawa team was led by J.C Watts at QB and had a tendency to start off their seasons poorly, catch some sort of second wind in the second half and win a playoff game or two. It was the last Grey Cup appearance for Ottawa until their successor franchise, the Redblacks, made it in 2015.

The CFL playoff structure at the time was set-up such that the top three teams in each division made it in spite of whatever their records might have been. Therefore, a 5-11 Ottawa team finished second in the East and a 3-13 Montreal team finished third in the East and both qualified for the playoffs. The 1981 Saskatchewan Roughriders finished 9-7, but because the West Division was much better, they finished fourth and did not qualify for the playoffs. In fact, Saskatchewan missed the playoffs each season from 1977 to 1987 (inclusive).

The league has taken steps to prevent such a scenario from taking place again (sort of). In 1986, for example, the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats finished 10-8 and 9-8-1 respectively and played a two-game series for the East championship. Ottawa and Montreal were just that bad. Four Western teams made the playoffs under that format.

Fast forward a decade or so and the CFL introduced the crossover. That means that if the #4 seed in either conference has a better record than the #3 seed in the other conference then the #4 seed crosses over. This has happened multiple times, though no crossover team has ever advanced to the Grey Cup. Why I say sort of is that if you applied the crossover to the 1981 season, then the 5-11 Ottawa team still makes it, but would've played the 9-7 Roughriders in the East Semi-Final in Ottawa. 3-13 Montreal would've been eliminated from playoff contention.

Halas Hall wrote: ↑Thu Jan 01, 2026 1:33 pm Happy New Year!

There is an indication that after finishing their regular season 3-13 the Montreal Alouettes lost an Eastern Conference semi-final playoff game 20-16 to the Ottawa Rough Riders.

How did a team with such a poor regular season record qualify for the playoffs?

Thank you.
Nick

The Toronto Argonauts finished 2-14, the Eastern Conference/Division finished;

Hamilton 11-4-1
Ottawa 5-11
Montreal 3-13
Toronto 2-14

Nowadays if the Eastern Division finished like this, there will be cross-flexing with the 4th team in the West, but back then the top three teams in each Conference/Division qualified to the playoffs.