0-5 CFL Team Blowing Late Lead Is Perfect Demonstration That Some Players Don't Even Understand The League's Rules

The CFL's Edmonton Elks simply aren't meant to put a crooked number in the wins column. The team blew a late lead thanks to one of those pesky CFL rules. The kind most of us in the States are only tangentially familiar with at best.

Canada's Mcgill University is largely responsible for what we know as football. That said, the version they play up there always feels like the Bizarro version to Americans. The goalposts are in the wrong place, there are 12 guys per side, only three downs, and you can land a small jet in the endzone.

Then there's something called a rouge, and even Elks receiver CJ Sims appeared to have no idea what the hell that is.

On Thursday nights the Elks were down south in Regina (stop snickering; be an adult) to take on the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

With just 90 seconds to go, the Elks yielded a touchdown to the Roughriders who then tacked on a two-point conversion to tie the game.

Not ideal, but at least the Elks were getting the ball back.

Edmonton Elks wide receiver CJ Sims had a momentary lapse in his CFL rulebook knowledge Thursday night in Regina. (Photo by Richard A. Whittaker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Elks Dealt A Loss Thanks To CFL "Single"

The Roughriders booted the ball over Sims and into the extra-deep endzone. He sauntered back to it without returning it. Perhaps the former New Mexico Highlands University Cowboy assumed this would result in a touchback. They'd trot the ball out to the 25-yard line and get on with it.

Not so in Canada.

Instead, it resulted in a rouge, or single, for the Roughriders. That's a single point awarded when a kick out the back of one of those prodigious CFL endzones or the receiving team fails to return it beyond the goal line.

Sims probably should have known this; the Elks scored a few singles in that game alone.

Whether that was the byproduct of a CJ Sims brain fart or smiting at the hands of the Candian Football gods is up for debate. One thing is certain: that's a soul-crushing way to lose for the Elks.

While they're still trying to stick one in the win column, the Roughriders used that bizarre ending to get their own monkey off their back. With the win, they snapped a seven-game regular season home losing streak.

Speaking of home losing streaks, Edmonton is still in the mids of a CFL record 19-game home losing streak of their own. That dates back to 2019 — months before COVID — when the team was still known as the Edmonton Eskimos.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle