Buck's Back

Welcome back Buck Pierce. The faithful followers of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have missed you. They’ve missed you a lot. It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 weeks since you injured your foot in a 42-10 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium. While you have been recuperating, Alex Brink and then Joey Elliott were given the starting quarterback job but the offence has been - well in one word - offensive.

Brink lasted three games and was replaced by Elliott after the team returned from the bye week. Elliott looked a lot like Matt Dunigan when he guided the Bombers to a 32-25 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in his first start of the season on August 16th. Unfortunately for Elliott it’s been big steps backwards since then. Case in point - zero touchdowns from the offence since head coach Paul LaPolice was fired back on August 17th. The Blue Bombers were blanked 52-0 by the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Regina on the Labour Day weekend. No team gets shutout in the CFL. The Bombers looked like they had their third win of season in the bag the following Sunday but watched the Riders take the Banjo Bowl 25-24. Then there was the 44-3 loss to the Calgary Stampeders at McMahon Stadium last Friday. Winnipeg recorded minus three yards of net offence in the first quarter. Minus is good in golf not when your team is trying to win football games. Will the offence finally get on track when Pierce returns to the lineup on Friday night as the Bombers play host to Hamilton?

“I’m excited for the opportunity,” said Pierce who will be making his first start since week three. “It’s going to fun for me to get back out there and compete. What I feel sometimes – that’s what we’re lacking a little bit. I think that’s something that I’ll relish going out there and doing.”

‘I look back at it and I’m like wow. It’s been a long time - much longer than I ever thought,” added Pierce.  “It’s one of those things where I have to go out and just focus in on my keys and do my job. We have to learn also as a unit and as a team to continue to fight through the rough patches of the game. We haven’t really been able to do that this year. There is going to be plays that don’t go our way and we got to be able to overcome those things."

Can one player rejuvenate an offence that has struggled to put points on the board? The answer is yes when that player is a veteran quarterback who wants so bad to show Bomber fans that this team is way better than their 2-9 record.

“Buck’s a good quarterback but he can’t do it by himself,” commented head coach Tim Burke. “We’ve got to make sure that he’s not picking himself up off the turf after every pass and the receivers have to hold on to the ball when he gets it to them.  He can only do so much and everybody else has got to do the rest. Everybody has to step up their game. There are no excuses at this point. We have the bodies in there that we want to have in there so let’s get it done.”

Yes Winnipeg Blue Bombers football fans this is the offence that was expected to start the 2012 season. But receiver Cory Watson and running back Chad Simpson got hurt in training camp and started the season on the injured list. Then Buck Pierce went down in week three. It took until week 13 but now the players are in place - Edwards, Watson, Poblah, Matthews, Denmark, Simpson and Pierce. Throw the ball, catch the ball, run the ball, move the chains, put the ball into the end zone. Is it really that simple? We’ll find out Friday night. Maybe one more small thing – protect the quarterback. Buck will appreciate it.