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How the rule works in the CFL

NEW ORLEANS – If the egregious no-call on pass interference in Sunday’s NFC championship had occurred in a CFL game, the head coach of the victimized team could have challenged it, if he had a timeout left.

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And the CFL replay command centre surely would have upheld the challenge and penalized Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman for defensive pass interference, after the fact.

Yes, coaches in the CFL can challenge pass-interference calls. Or non-calls. Both offensive and defensive.

Albeit with limitations.

It’s something the league instituted in 2014. But CFL coaches cannot challenge the NFL equivalent of defensive holding, which that league terms “illegal contact” and extends not from one yard beyond the line of scrimmage as in the NFL but five yards.

The CFL has a three-minute warning at the end of the fourth quarter, as opposed to the NFL’s two-minute warning at the end of each half, and after that point, while the league’s central replay command centre takes over all replay-initiating decisions as in the NFL, there are six exceptions for what are defined as “coach challengeable penalties,” whether called or not called on the field. That ones that apply to potential pass-play interference are: (1) defensive pass interference, (2) offensive pass interference and (3) illegal blocking downfield on a pass play.