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Go ahead, blame the Ottawa Redblacks for the increased number of penalty flags thrown by officials during Canadian Football League games this year.

Not entirely, of course, but it’s true that penalty calls have risen 26 per cent overall in the Redblacks’ first season, and this isn’t the first time it has happened. There was a 12.4-per-cent hike in flags when the Ottawa Renegades kicked off in 2002.

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In contrast, calls decreased slightly more than four per cent after the CFL introduced its first U.S.-based team in 1993 and by as much as 13 per cent during the league’s short-lived adventure with a handful of franchises in that country.

Glen Johnson says there are several reasons why flags have been flying an average of 23.2 times per game during the first eight weeks of the 2014 regular season.

A former on-field official now in his first year as the CFL’s director of officiating, Johnson cites not only the 60 additional, largely inexperienced players on team rosters — 44 Redblacks and two on each of the other eight squads — but also the three new officials on CFL crews, two new head referees and changes in officiating standards made by the league’s rules committee after consultations with representatives of all nine teams and the CFL Players’ Association.