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Joe Mack sacked the only coach who managed to win this season. (WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES) Photo Store

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Buck Pierce

After further review, maybe it was Joe Mack who lost the ear of the players.

Hard to argue that the move to fire Paul LaPolice and insert defensive co-ordinator Tim Burke as interim head coach has blown up right in the Blue Bombers GM's face. The team is winless since the move and given the recent showing of late, the players don't appear to be playing for Mack's job, either.

Following the latest black comedy, a 44-3 result in Calgary last Friday that has the lid on the coffin, the Bombers have been outscored 121-27 under the new head coach.

Let's call it what it is: The true intention of Burke's ill-timed promotion -- a bump up the coaching ranks orchestrated by Mack to get the attention of the room and move this young team past its own youth and inexperience -- has not only not materialized, it's had the reverse effect on the team.

Winnipeg looks no better than they did through the first eight games, when LaPolice, who wasn't the right leader for the club, Mack determined, was working his tail off to keep an injury-riddled roster pulling in the same direction.

Somehow, LaPolice won two games with this roster. Given what you've seen of late, does that say more about LaPolice or more about Burke? And what does it say about Mack's influence over this roster?

Right now, the players don't seem to be listening to him, either.

Go back to after the Labour Day game. Winnipeg was just embarrassed 52-0 and as the dust settled there was Mack in the locker-room, telling the players he was going to ride with them the rest of the season. Instead of putting the fear into the room -- players who just lost by 52 points should be worried about their jobs -- he essentially told them that everything is going to be OK.

Don't worry, guys. We're cool.

Huh? Shouldn't the GM be trying to fix this broken roster instead of running wind sprints at practice? How is that a motivator for the players? Guess what, Joe: They're not laughing with you.

Go back even further, back to when Mack was out-hustled by other CFL GMs during free agency. As players booked flights out of Winnipeg for bigger dollars, insubordinates currently under contract lashed out at their boss via social media, wondering aloud why a Grey Cup finalist was not adding missing pieces.

The fallout: No one was cut. No one was shipped out. One player got an extension, so that's something.

Don't worry, guys. We're cool.

From that point on, the laughter hasn't stopped. That the TSN cameras caught defensive lineman Brandon Collier and the two No. 2 quarterbacks (Alex Brink and Joey Elliott) giggling at different moments in the fourth quarter of the game the other night really doesn't mean much, one figures.

Optics aren't important to Mack. Neither is his 16-31 record, apparently.

The GM talks about the talent on his team but it's a smokescreen, a dispatch designed to protect the product that has his prints all over it. During the presser to announce the firing of LaPolice, he continued to defend the players, mentioning their culpability to the Bombers dire straits in passing, while repeatedly patting himself on the back for the amount of young skill he's procured.

All that talent has bombed big in two of the last three games (losses by 41 and 52 points), at a time when (playoff) hope was dangling by a thread.

Which, in a way, brings us back to the overwhelmed Burke, who's been left to deal with this mess. He's been all over the road with his coaching style and the players obviously haven't bought in to any shift in attitude his increased presence was supposed to bring. Discipline and intensity? We haven't seen much of that in three games and it's foolish to think it will just show up against Hamilton Friday.

The optics suggest, at this point of the 2-9 funeral procession, Burke and his interim title have about as much authority and influence over this club as LaPolice supposedly didn't have. Mack has pretty much assured that.

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @wazoowazny

The week ahead in Bomberland

1. Starting quarterback Buck Pierce returns to the first-team offence when the practice cycle starts at Canad Inns Stadium this morning. Pierce has missed eight games with a left-foot injury, though he was healthy enough to play in the 44-3 loss to Calgary. Say what you want about the eight-year veteran and his inability to stay healthy (he's missed 23 of the club's 47 games since 2010), he should be an upgrade over Joey Elliott and Alex Brink, who have hit a bump in their learning curves of late.

2. Of course, it might not matter who settles under centre, given the recent play of the offence. Get ready to hear a lot of chatter about the attack, starting with the weekly scrutiny of offensive co-ordinator Gary Crowton's playbook -- if it hasn't been tossed toward a dumpster by now. If it was, it probably fell short. Anyway, the Bombers haven't scored an offensive touchdown since the third-quarter TD plunge by Alex Brink in the home loss to B.C. Aug. 24. That's more than three games (46 possessions), if you lost track, or 199 minutes and 15 seconds of CFL action. Brutal. There's an "offence" and "execution" joke in this, but it also involves a cigarette and a wall full of holes...

3. A thought about the coaching staff. When Winnipeg fired Paul LaPolice, the staff went down to seven coaches, with Tim Burke (head coach and defensive co-ordinator) and Kyle Walters (special teams and the de facto assistant head coach) picking up the slack. The results haven't been positive; small details are being missed. Four CFL clubs (Calgary, Toronto, Saskatchewan, Montreal) carry 10-coach staffs, while two (B.C. and Edmonton) have nine coaches. Hamilton employs 11 coaches. It's probably too late to make a difference this year, but Winnipeg has to address this before next year. Wouldn't an extra set of eyes be worth the money?

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 17, 2012 C6