The CFL's East Division is in crisis, with its teams a combined 4-13 so far (and 2-11 against the West) and occupying spots 6-9 in our power rankings. It's not the first time that's happened, either; except for the Montreal Alouettes' continued success and the Toronto Argonauts' 2012 Grey Cup, the division's largely been a weak spot over the last decade-plus. The East's struggles this year have been even more prominent than usual, though, and that's led to some pieces proposing the idea of eliminating the divisions and moving to a single league table. Here's one, from Kirk Penton of The Winnipeg Sun:

Here we are, nearly a third of the way through the CFL schedule, and the worst team in the West Division has a better record than the best team in the East Division. This is not surprising, given the West’s dominance of its weaker cousins east of the Manitoba-Ontario border for the last decade or so. So once again it’s time to talk about the possibility of getting rid of the league’s division format and letting the top six teams make the playoffs. ... One of the requirements of no divisions would be a balanced schedule, although the league could fudge that a bit and give each team one more game against a squad from both the old West and East Divisions. Rivalries won’t be affected, because teams now play each other no more than three times a season anyway. Two games is more than enough to get a good hate on for one another. As for the playoffs, those against the removal of the division format say there should always be a team from the East and a team from the West in the Grey Cup. That’s always a good idea, but host teams nowadays are putting an emphasis on getting to the big game in their own park. Besides, the Grey Cup is still one heck of a party no matter who is playing, so it’s not the end of the world if it’s two West teams playing at the Rogers Centre. The place still should be packed.

There's some merit to the idea, of course. As Penton points out, if the season ended this week, you'd have one of the 1-3 East teams receiving a first-round bye and another one hosting a playoff game against a 2-2 Saskatchewan team crossing over, while 2-3 B.C. would miss the playoffs entirely. That doesn't seem particularly fair. However, this is still early in the season, and the East has only played six home games so far to the West's 14; there will be plenty of further East on East games, too, which should allow at least some of those teams to pick up more wins. It seems highly unlikely that they'll all be terrible for the entire season.

What would removing divisions mean from a practical standpoint? Yes, the idea of the top six teams making the playoffs regardless of geography sounds appealing, but it seems unlikely it would actually change much. The CFL's crossover rule means that the fourth-place team in one division can take the playoff spot of the third-place one in the other division if it has a better record. Thus, four of the six playoff spots are currently available for the West's five teams; a divisionless format would only make it possible for one extra West team to make it in, and that would only happen under unusual circumstances. This only even changes things slightly because it's a nine-team league now; when the league had eight teams, the same teams would have made the playoffs regardless of if divisions were included or not (thanks to the crossover rule). All divisional elimination would accomplish from a standpoint of who makes the playoffs would be allowing for the fifth-place team in the West to make the playoffs if they had a better record than the second-place team in the East. That seems highly unlikely to ever happen, but it could also be solved without eliminating divisions simply by providing for a double crossover.

Sure, eliminating divisions would also alter the playoff seeding a bit, but it's not like that's currently a huge problem either. Yes, the East has been consistently worse than the West over the last decade-plus in terms of teams' overall records and interdivisional records, but it's typically had a couple of strong teams at the top. Consider 2012: the East as a whole was 32-40 and 12-20 against the West, but Montreal finished 11-7 and 6-2 against the West, and Toronto went 10-8 (3-6 against the West, but they beat a West team in the Grey Cup). Or look at 2013, where the East was also 32-40 and 12-20 against the West as a whole, but had 11-7 and 10-8 teams (Toronto and Hamilton), plus a team with a winning record against the West (Toronto, 5-3) and one with a tying record (Montreal, 4-4). East teams have won three of the last five Grey Cups, too, so it's not like there's a strong case for shutting them out of the game, and if the West is so much better than the East, wouldn't we be likely to see a crossover team make it to the Grey Cup? That's never happened since the rule's inception in 1996. Only six teams have ever crossed over at all, and only two of them have won their first-round game. Yes, all the crossovers have been West to East, so the West division has again demonstrated more depth, but West bottom-feeders haven't yet proven able to knock off the class of the East.

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