LaPolice denied chance to interview with Roughriders

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This article was published 21/01/2019 (2651 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers created a rift with a member of their top brass Sunday night when they denied offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice the chance to speak with the Saskatchewan Roughriders about their opening for a new head coach.

Sources told the Free Press whatever tension existed between LaPolice and the Bombers had already started to ease Monday. The team did not make LaPolice available for an interview.

The Bombers were within their rights to prevent LaPolice from packing up and heading west to the archrival Roughriders. LaPolice’s contract does not have an out clause, or anything resembling that of Saskatchewan’s Chris Jones.

Jones chose last week to opt out of his deal with the Roughriders in order to join the NFL’s Cleveland Browns as a senior defensive assistant — a move that ultimately created whatever friction now exists between LaPolice and the Bombers.

Few could blame the Bombers’ offensive co-ordinator for being irked. After all, LaPolice has been a head coach once before, with the Bombers from 2010-12. He led Winnipeg to their last Grey Cup appearance in just his second year, only to be fired after a 2-6 start to the 2012 season.

It wasn’t surprising that Winnipeg said no, either. The first clue came during Bombers general manager Kyle Walter’s media conference last week. Walters had never prevented a coach from earning a promotion, even allowing LaPolice to interview for the head-coaching job with the Toronto Argonauts in December (LaPolice ultimately withdrew his name). Other coaches, including quarterbacks coach Buck Pierce, have been permitted to talk to other teams in recent years.

But Walters seemed more than non-committal when asked about the Roughriders’ sudden vacancy. One stark difference this time around, the GM kept saying, was timing.

“Up to this point, everybody that’s been requested for an interview has been allowed,” Walters said. “But again, those were earlier in the process. We never had to have a discussion about a coach at this time of the year — where a coach has been offered a position. What do we do?”

LaPolice already knows too much about the 2019 Bombers. He’s aware of their free-agent plans, is privy to updates on player injuries being rehabbed over the off-season and is responsible for coming up with the team’s offensive game plan.

Losing LaPolice would have left Winnipeg with a giant hole in the offence. While Pierce is widely considered to be the heir apparent for LaPolice’s job, it would have been a lot to ask a rookie OC to run the offence.

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea has exercised extreme caution when hiring his assistants, ensuring he has the right person — and personality — that fits with his group. Filling such big shoes this late in the game would be difficult.

With the Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos likely to lose their starting quarterbacks either to the NFL or CFL free agency, and Saskatchewan without a proven quarterback amidst its front office shuffle, one could argue the Bombers are the early favourites to win the West Division.

For a team that hasn’t won the Grey Cup since 1990, why shoot yourself in the foot before even hitting the starting line?

LaPolice would have received strong consideration for the Roughriders job. He served as the team’s receivers coach in 2006 and ’07 and as OC in 2008 and ’09. During that time, he worked closely with Jeremy O’Day, the former all-star offensive lineman with the Roughriders who at that time was the team’s assistant GM and was named the team’s GM last week.

LaPolice is considered to be among the brightest offensive minds in the CFL, meaning he would attract interest from quarterbacks on the open market. What’s to say he couldn’t convince Edmonton’s Mike Reilly to jump ship? Wouldn’t the Ottawa Redblacks’ Trevor Harris, or any quarterback, want to play for LaPolice’s uptempo offence that had led the CFL the past two seasons? It’s likely for this very reason Ottawa also decided not to allow OC Jamie Elizondo to speak to the Roughriders, for fear he might steal away a prized player in Harris.

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @jeffkhamilton