We come not to praise the long field goal, but to bury it.

R.I.P., you 50-plus-yarders, your time has passed. Except for in the most dire circumstances when, like a zombie, you will be asked to revive and inflict some permanent damage.

Heading into the Labour Day weekend, the halfway point of the CFL schedule, there had been only one field goal attempt from longer than 49 yards.

That was Grant Shaw's 50-yard miss on the final play of the Aug. 2 game in Edmonton, which fell to the right for a single point allowing the Tiger-Cats to cling to a 30-29 win. It was a desperation call with the game on the line, and no time remaining for any other tactical manoeuvre.

But otherwise for CFL coaches, given the choice, there is no choice.

They will almost invariably call for a punt from outside the 50-yard-line - which means a line of scrimmage at the 43-yard line or higher - rather than a field goal. And they want that punt to land inside the 10 yard-line then bounce benignly out of bounds.

If the numbers from the opening 32 games carry through the final 40, it will be the first CFL season in 48 years without a field goal made from 50 yards or longer.

That underscores a definitive trend. In 2011 there were only 21 attempts from 50 yards or farther, and last year that dropped to just 13. Ticats legend Paul Osbaldiston, now the team's kicking coach, recalls trying nearly that many 50-yarders himself one season in the late 1980s.

In 1999, Osbaldiston had nine such attempts and made three, and the following year he was good on four of six from 50 yards or longer. But only a dozen years later, Osbaldiston's kicker Luca Congi, whose field goal success rate last year was a terrific 88.9 per cent, will likely not be asked to attempt one from outside the 50, unless it's in the final series of a game the Cats narrowly trail or there's a tremendous wind at his back.

At first blush, such staunch resistance to the long trey is counterintuitive. Modern kickers are more accurate, by far, than their earlier counterparts. The field surfaces have generally consistent footing and with training, nutrition and increased technical knowledge kickers can hoof it farther.

"The biggest thing to explain that is the returners," said Osbaldiston, who nailed that 54-yarder on the final play against Montreal to propel Hamilton into the 1998 Grey Cup game.

"They've become more specialized, the whole game has.

"Who used to return missed field goals? It was one of your defensive players, or maybe a receiver, who was part of a 36-man roster when I started playing (1986). The guy in the back of the end zone was probably the safety who, at the end of a long defensive drive, was sitting 128 yards away from the other goal-line bending over and trying to catch his breath."

Expanded rosters, the introduction of the Designated Import, and revised blocking rules designed to increase long runbacks have all combined to summon the punter, not the place-kicker, onto the field in what used to be three-point range. League statistician Steve Daniel points out that the average length of attempted field goals has dropped more than three full yards in less than three full seasons.

"I know it's not about the ability of the kickers, for sure," says 15-year veteran Noel Prefontaine, who is back handling punting-kicking chores for the Toronto Argonauts, while Swayze Waters is injured.

"Having said that, you try to win with defence. When you punt the ball from the 40, you're giving your defence a chance to stand their ground and do their thing. Get a two-and-out, and you can pin them deep. Just from a percentages standpoint, the likelihood of you marching for a touchdown from inside your own 20 is minimal.

"And the other side of the coin is the fabulous returners there are in the league. Not that there haven't been great ones over the years, but you've got almost every guy back there who can break one.

"And the rules help."

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Opposite to the NFL trend, the CFL has legislated stimulations to the return game because special teams play such a significant role in a three-down sport, and the prospect of exciting runbacks sells tickets. There were 11 runbacks for touchdowns last year, four of them on missed field goals. On punts and missed field goals alone, Hamilton's suddenly-newsworthy-again Chris Williams had six touchdowns.

There have been two huge touchdown returns (Tim Brown's 125-yarder, Chad Owens' 118) from missed field goals this year, which further entrenches the coaching philosophy that the coffin-corner punt replaces the long field goal attempt.

"Absolutely," Osbaldiston says. "It's like the safety. We got near field goal range, you kicked a field goal. If we were backed up in the end zone unless there were 10 seconds left and you were up by more than two points you punted it and covered it. Today we give up the safety.

"I think it's just strictly the chance of the momentum swing and the six the other way. And field position, too. It boils down to a coach's decision. Do I want to risk the six points or have them have the ball on the 35-yard line just for one point? It's not worth it.

"The punters are better so let's put it into the corner. We were never asked to kick for the coffin corner when I came in. But when Don Sutherin came to the Ticats (in the mid-1990s) we started to kick out of bounds to avoid the runback. Then they took that away a few years later with new rules."

So, coaches tend to ask their field goal kickers to make attempts only from where they're most accurate, especially with the long return-six looming over the decision. It's a chicken-and-egg thing, as the better-trained kickers were already prone to more accuracy. But that accuracy is also enhanced by kicking from a comfort zone. Paul McCallum set the league record two years ago with a 94.3 per cent success rate, Rene Paredes led at 93 per cent last year, while Congi and Justin Palardy were over 86 per cent, and four kickers are at 86 per cent so far this year with Paredes connecting at an insane 95.8 per cent rate.

Prefontaine says that every kicker tries, and makes, at least one 55-yarder in pre-game warm-ups.

"The coaches see that, but we're not going to try that in a game. Why? Because we like our defence and we have an offence which can score points. And having a return touchdown because of a miss can keep a bad team in a football game."

Prefontaine also refers to the game in which Shaw missed the only 50-yarder attempted in the CFL this season and shrugs that the Eskimos could have also attempted a 53-yarder with just 15 seconds remaining in the first half. They decided to punt instead, to the Hamilton two-yard-line. No runback, but also no single - in a game eventually decided by one point.

That's how deeply the sense of shun the long one has become ingrained.

By the numbers

CFL field goals

Attempts from 50 yards or longer

2011 21

2012 13

2013 2*

*Pro-rated for full season

Average length of attempts, in yards:

2011 33.4

2012 33.0

2013 30.3

Percentage of completions

2003 76

2008 80.2

2013 84.1

Source: CFL

