Blue doomed to repeat themselves?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2015 (3592 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every life lesson worth learning can be learned at a racetrack.

And topping the list is that the most reliable indicator of future performance is past performance.

So why would the Winnipeg Blue Bombers this week hire a man to lead their offence who they’ve already fired — twice — previously? And why would the Bombers think hiring Paul LaPolice this time around is going to end any differently than it did the last two times?

It was a trip down memory lane for Bombers fans Tuesday as the club trotted out LaPolice as their new offensive co-ordinator and the man they think can finally help lead this team out of a championship drought that is now being measured in quarter-centuries.

It all seemed so familiar because it all was so familiar. LaPolice was Winnipeg’s head coach from 2010 to the midway point of the 2012 season and the club’s offensive co-ordinator in 2002 and 2003.

Both those episodes ended with LaPolice getting run out of town because — wait for it — the offences he designed weren’t getting the job done.

And yet, there was Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea sitting before the media saying how he’d been trying to hire LaPolice as his offensive co-ordinator ever since 2014 and extolling the virtues of a man he thinks is the solution to all that ails the offence.

So, I wondered to myself, did I just mis-remember? Was LaPo an offensive genius all along? Was he fired for some other reason?

So I checked. And what I found — in black and white — was my memory is just fine.

Here are the first two paragraphs of a column I wrote the day LaPolice was fired the last time, in August 2012:

“Paul LaPolice was hired in 2010 for one good reason — the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offence sucked.

“And LaPolice was fired on Saturday for one good reason — the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offence still sucked.”

So, um, yeah, meet your new offensive co-ordinator.

You don’t have to take my word for it — the numbers speak for themselves. And what they say about LaPolice-led CFL offences is they are mostly mediocre.

Consider:

• With LaPolice as head coach, the Winnipeg offence was ranked fifth in total yards in both 2010 and 2011. Yes, the Bombers went to the Grey Cup game in 2011, but it was because Tim Burke’s Swaggerville defence dragged them there. And that 2012 team? They were 2-6 when LaPo got canned.
• With LaPolice as Winnipeg’s offensive co-ordinator in 2002, the offence broke records, although it bears reminding that a lot of success had carried over from the 2001 season, when the Bombers went 14-4 and played in the Grey Cup game. By 2003, the offence was a mess again and LaPolice was gone by the end of the year.
• With LaPolice as offensive co-ordinator in Saskatchewan in 2008 and 2009, the Riders were seventh and sixth in net offence, respectively, although the 2009 team was second in points and played in the Grey Cup game.

Now, sixth isn’t terrible. It’s certainly better than dead last — which is where the Winnipeg offence ranked in each of the last two seasons.

So LaPolice has that going for him — just about anything his offence does in 2016 will be an improvement on what Marcel Bellefeuille accomplished.

But sixth isn’t exactly excellence now, is it? In a week in which the Saskatchewan Roughriders opened the vault to hire Chris Jones to do for them what he just finished doing for the Edmonton Eskimos — turn around the franchise in short order and win a championship — the Bombers went with more of the same old, same old.

It’s a familiar tune for a franchise that, let’s remember, could have hired Jones when he was available in 2014, but elected to go with O’Shea. And go with O’Shea again in 2015. And go with O’Shea yet again in 2016 in a season in which every team in the West Division will have a new head coach except the Bombers, who have won 12 games in the last two years combined.

As for Jones, he has now won four Grey Cups with four teams in the CFL.

Coincidence? The Riders sure don’t think so. They examined a racing form the last couple weeks and came to the conclusion the quickest way to start winning again was to bet on a horse who has done it year after year.

And the Bombers? They’ve been tearing up tickets for years.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek