LaPolice just got fired? WTF, SERIOUSLY?!?!?
Blue Bombers fire head coach Paul LaPolice
The Canadian Press
Posted: Aug 25, 2012 2:48 PM ET | Last Updated: Aug 25, 2012 3:43 PM ET
Paul LaPolice has paid the price for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' losing season.
The CFL team fired its head coach on Saturday and replaced him with defensive co-ordinator Tim Burke.
The announcement comes a day after the Blue Bombers dropped 20-17 decision at home to the B.C. Lions to fall to 2-6 on the season, last in the East Division.
LaPolice was in his third season in Winnipeg and leaves the team with a 16-28 record.
After taking over for the fired Mike Kelly after the 2009 season, the Bombers struggled to a league-low 4-14 record in 2010.
But Winnipeg rebounded in a big way the next year, winning the East Division with a 10-8 mark before losing 34-23 to the B.C. Lions in the 2011 Grey Cup final.
Just months after LaPolice was given a two-year contract extension, the Bombers stumbled out of the gates this season and went 0-4. Winnipeg didn't register its first win until a 23-22 home victory against the Edmonton Eskimos on July 26.
LaPolice came to Winnipeg after three season in Saskatchewan, first as a receivers coach, then as offensive co-ordinator as the Riders went to the 2009 Grey Cup finals.
He became Winnipeg's 28th head coach when he was hired Feb. 5, 2010.
"This was an extremely difficult decision to make especially when dealing with the kind of quality individual as Paul is," Blue Bombers vice-president and general manager Joe Mack said in a statement. "As the season has progressed, and looking back on how we struggled throughout the second half of the year in 2011, we have become increasingly concerned with the direction of our club and felt this was in the best interest of our entire organization."
FULL ARTICLE LINK -
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/story/2012/08/25/sp-cfl-winnipeg-blue-bombers-paul-lapolice-fired.htmlIf anyone, it should be Joe Mack's ass that's on the line right now. We lost a GOOD chunk of our experienced, core players over the off-season, either because Mack traded them or because he chose to NOT try hard enough to keep them. Seriously, how the fuck does he and the team's board of governors expect LaPolice to keep coaching a 1st place, competitive team (like we had last year) when 20-50% of our starting lineup has less than 2 full season's worth of experience? He can only do his best with what he's been given. LaPolice
is a good coach, but you can't expect him (or any coach, for that matter), to be able to match what we did last season when the make-up of the team has been changed so radically.
You need good, quality ingredients, put together and cooked the proper way to make a good, tasty dish. Similarly, in order to make/have a strong, winning team you need a good set of experienced players who know the game and who have the knowledge/instincts of what to do in the heat of the moment of a game. Joe Mack and the management have NOT given that to LaPolice this season, and now they're firing him because he hasn't been able to get results with what he HAS been given? Give...me...a...muthafuckin...break. No way in hell that he deserves getting shafted like this.