Nothing personal, Buck

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/11/2011 (5372 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER — It’s a popular storyline, one drenched with vindication that could easily overshadow the game itself.

With Buck Pierce, the Blue Bombers quarterback, facing Lions GM and head coach Wally Buono, the man who cut him outright after the 2009 season, the 99th Grey Cup carries a certain cache. But sadly, if you’re looking for instant drama in B.C. — it’s not there, at least not yet.

Revenge, apparently, is not on the long itinerary this week.

“When you make a decision, good people like Buck don’t take it personally,” Buono said to the media Wednesday, explaining his decision to move Pierce out and bring Travis Lulay in as the Lions starting quarterback. “The reason, to me, was very, very simple. We had too many years of too much instability at the quarterback position. Not because of skill but because of injuries.

“All it means is that the piece just didn’t fit with us. It doesn’t mean any more than that.”

It’s hard to argue Buono’s position. Lulay started all 18 games for the Lions this year. The one time he was pulled, a game against Winnipeg (Aug. 13), led to a B.C. football renaissance afterwards, with Lulay leading the Leos to an 11-1 record since then.

And for the most part Pierce, who played for five years in Vancouver after coming to Canada out of New Mexico State in 2005, seems to have landed on his feet, too. He has slayed his injury demons, starting a career-high 16 games this season, and while he didn’t finish all of them he did hold up his end of a bargain that was struck with coaches after the 2010 season.

Pierce said the difference in staying healthy comes from a conversation with coaches over the winter, as he recovered from the serious elbow injury suffered in Regina that many figured would be the final chapter to his short career. If the Bombers were going to be successful, and by all accounts the organization thought they had a winning hand just based on the lack of changes made to a 4-14 team, Pierce needed to change his approach.

Or at the very least, tweak it. He became smarter, he said.

“The competitiveness in me won’t allow me to stop. What I think has been my burden in the past is also my blessing.”

That burden, that blessing, is what the Bombers took into consideration when they pulled Pierce essentially off the scrap heap before the 2010 season. The Lions had made their decision to cut the cord and quarterback-starved clubs — like the Toronto Argonauts — listened to the sales pitch but quickly took a pass.

Even Winnipeg wasn’t completely sold on Pierce. Both general manager Joe Mack and coach Paul LaPolice liked the skill set of Stefan LeFors and he was going to be the guy heading into 2010, before the club and player got into a messy dispute surrounding injury compensation from the previous year.

They suspended LeFors prior to the 2010 training camp, and the rest is history.

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Pierce understood why teams weren’t lining up to bring him in. That said, he still pitched himself to clubs in the same manner in which he plays: Straightforward.

“I can see them, from an outsider’s point (of view), being cautious,” he said. “But I made it a point to get out in front of teams and put my foot down and say, ‘This is what I am. You’re going to get a guy that does have a past with some injuries but is going to be a leader for you and going to get you where you want to go.’

“Once they (the Bombers) saw that in me, they liked what they saw.”

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