2024 Canadian Football League Odds - CFL Online Betting

Canadian Football League Betting

The 2024 season marks the 66th of the Canadian Football League with nine teams competing for the Grey Cup Championship, which takes place on November 17, 2024 in Vancouver. The 18-game regular season runs from early June until late October with two weeks of playoff games before the championship Grey Cup. The Montreal Alouettes upset the top two teams in the league to capture the Grey Cup title last year. Finishing the regular season at 11-7, the Alouettes beat Hamilton in the division semifinals before ousting top-seeded Toronto in the East Division Final. Montreal then beat the heavily favored Winnipeg Blue Bombers to capture its first league title since 2010. Early CFL futures odds have the Alouettes positioned as the 2024 Grey Cup favorite.

2024 Grey Cup Odds

Montreal Alouettes +275

BC Lions +400

Toronto Argonauts +400

Winnipeg Blue Bombers +400

Saskatchewan Rough Riders +700

Ottawa Red Blacks +1200

Calgary Stampeders +1600

Hamilton Tiger-Cats +2200

Edmonton Elks +2500

Winnipeg has been a dominant team recently reaching the playoffs in each of the past six seasons while advancing to the Grey Cup final the past four years. The Blue Bombers won the title in their first two trips (2019, 2021) and lost the last two in heartbreaking fashion. Toronto eked out a 24-23 win in 2022 while Montreal overcame a 10-point halftime deficit outscoring the favored Blue Bombers 21-7 in the second half for a 28-24 victory.

The momentum from a 2024 Grey Cup championship run carried over the 2024 season with the Alouettes positioned as the CFL futures odds favorite. It’s worth noting that in the near seven decade history of the Grey Cup there have been just 10 instances of a team repeating as champions the following the season. Montreal got hot down the stretch last year winning their last five regular season games and all three playoff matchups.

Though they got off to bad start in 2024, the Blue Bombers remain a team to keep an eye on. They’ve made four straight appearances in the championship game and in 2022 they fell short of becoming the first three-peat Grey Cup winner since Edmonton nearly 40 years ago. Two titles and four straight Grey Cups put the Bombers in the Dynasty category and they have a number of players back that helped them get there, including two-time CFL MOP quarterback Zach Collaros.

A big favorite in last year’s East Division Final against eventual Grey Cup champion Montreal, the Argonauts shot themselves in the feet with nine turnovers. The CFL’s 2023 Most Outstanding Player, Chad Kelly tossed four interceptions and the Argos turned the ball over on downs four times and lost a fumble in the 38-17 setback. Toronto’s futures odds took a hit when Kelly was suspended for at least nine game by the league.

CFL East Division Teams

CFL West Division Teams

Since the late 1950s, the CFL has typically had nine franchises. However, there has been some vacillation in that number over the years. The CFL had nine teams from 1958 to 1986, but then the Montreal Alouettes folded the day before the 1987 season was to start. The league had eight teams until the mid-1990s when the CFL nearly doubled in size with expansion into the United States. Seven American teams joined the league during that time, but Baltimore was the only city where the Canadian game was a success. In just three years, the American teams were all gone, making it a fully Canadian game once more.

In 1996 the CFL lost its longest-tenured team, the Ottawa Rough Riders, after 120 years of football. Fortunately, the league was able to put a team back in Montreal that year to keep the league static at eight teams. A new team in Ottawa bumped the league back up to nine teams in 2002, but the number of CFL franchises dropped down to eight once more after Ottawa folded after just four seasons. There were just eight teams until 2014 when the Ottawa Redblacks were founded, and the league has been stable at nine teams since that point.

Differences Between the NFL and CFL

There are a number of important differences between the NFL and CFL, but we’re only going to focus on a few. One of the first things you notice when watching a CFL game is the size of the field. CFL fields are 10 yards longer and have end zones that are 20 yards deep. Fields up north are about 20 percent wider too, so CFL games are played with an extra player on both sides. Goalposts in the CFL are on the goal line and not at the back of the end zone.

Another major difference is the number of downs you have to achieve a first down. In the American game, you have four downs to pick up 10 yards, but in the Canadian game, it’s just three. That leads to far more passing (and punting) in the CFL than you see in the NFL.

Additionally, CFL’s similarity to rugby is seen in two major areas. First, there is a one-yard neutral zone between offensive lines and defensive lines in the CFL that cannot be crossed before the ball is snapped. Secondly, teams can score a single point by kicking the ball through the end zone in what’s called a single or rouge.

List of Grey Cup Champions (2000)

The Toronto Argonauts have won more Grey Cups than any other team in the CFL. They won their first Grey Cup in 1914, defeating the University of Toronto Varsity Blues 14-2, and Toronto won its 10th title in 1952. The Argos overcame a three-decade title drought to win in 1983, and they have now won seven Grey Cups in the last three decades.

A handful of franchises have three-peated, but only the Edmonton Elks have won five straight Grey Cups. Edmonton dominated the CFL in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as Warren Moon lit up the league. Moon led Edmonton to its last four Grey Cups, and it took five years for the Eskimos to win again after he left for the NFL.

The unluckiest team in the history of the Grey Cup is Saskatchewan. The Roughriders have made 19 appearances in the Grey Cup final, but they have just four championships to show for it. They have lost some heartbreakers over the years too, none more painful than losing the 2009 Grey Cup to Montreal after too many men on the field penalty with no time left.

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