THE CANADIAN PRESS
Run the football, protect the football and keep Drew Willy on his feet. Oh, and it can’t be repeated enough – keep Drew Willy on his feet.
Those are the things newly-hired offensive coordinator Paul LaPolice focused on at his introductory press conference this week, where he sat with Head Coach Mike O’Shea to discuss his return to Winnipeg.
LaPolice is set to begin his third stint with the Bombers hoping to rejuvenate a Bomber offence that’s struggled to get on track in the first two years under O’Shea. It starts and ends with Willy, the Bombers’ franchise quarterback.
“I’m excited to work with him, excited to get his opinions on things and he will be part of the process,” LaPolice said of Willy. “He will definitely be part of – how do we want to do this, how do we want to read this out, what do you want to do footwork wise on this – we want him to be part of the process.”
After getting his first head coaching gig in 2010 with the Bombers, LaPolice was dismissed halfway through the 2012 season. He worked as an analyst for TSN while keeping his home in Winnipeg, and now arrives at his first coaching job since leaving.
WATCH: LaPolice on returning to Winnipeg
His relationship with the 29-year-old Willy will be imperative to the Bombers’ offensive success moving forward. So far the feelings between the two are mutual.
“Really looking forward to working with Coach LaPolice next season!” Willy tweeted on Monday. Willy also played a role in recruiting LaPolice, who said he was offered the same role by another unnamed team.
“There was a little bit of a recruitment process so after my interview,” said LaPolice, “Drew was sending me a couple of texts about wanting to have me here. I haven’t spoken to him since but I had spoken to him at Grey Cup and he sent me a couple of texts and I replied back.”
So what can LaPolice add to a Bomber offence that’s ranked dead last in the CFL two years running? Keeping Willy healthy and on the field would be a good starting point.
The Bombers were 3-4 in games Willy started last season and 2-9 without him, while in his seven starts the second-year starter completed 68.6 per cent of his passes and threw eight touchdown passes to only three interceptions. Willy’s quarterback rating of 106.6 was second among starters only to Zach Collaros, and his 9.2 yards per attempt also put him in elite territory ahead of the likes of Henry Burris, Bo Levi Mitchell and Mike Reilly.
It’s not unreasonable to think that with Willy under centre for 18 games, the Bombers could have done enough to finish ahead of 7-11 BC to make the playoffs in the West.
DREW WILLY
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“Playing all those games without Drew really hurt us,” said Jamaal Westerman, the West Division’s Most Outstanding Canadian after finishing second in the CFL with 17 sacks. “If you look at most of the teams that made the playoffs, most of them had their quarterback for most of the year.”
The Bombers eventually found Matt Nichols via trade from Edmonton after going through two other starters first, and the former Eskimo gave the team stability at the quarterback position the rest of the way. But while the Bombers now appear to have a solid backup and insurance policy in Nichols for 2016, the lost time may have knocked them out of the playoffs.
“Matt did a great job when he came in of keeping us in those games, but playing without our starter hurt – of course it hurt,” Westerman added. “That’s the number one position I think in all of professional sports is the quarterback.
“Him being down and trying to find different guys, of course that hurts.”
Keeping Willy healthy means avoiding sacks and big hits, an area of high priority for the Bombers’ new offensive coordinator. The 6-foot-4, 221-pound pivot somehow survived a hard-hitting 2014 season in which the Bombers were sacked a league-worst 71 times, setting an all-time franchise record.
Last year the team restructured its O-line, led by the free agent addition of Stanley Bryant and the second overall pick in the 2015 CFL Draft Sukh Chungh, while 2014 second overall pick Matthias Goossen also played a central role in 2015.
Yet despite the early season hype surrounding the front five, the Bombers still ranked second-worst in the league with 59 sacks allowed – a modest improvement over 2014 but still troublesome for an offence that struggled to move the football.
“I think there are things you can tweak to do differently . . . The quarterback holds the ball, we’re going to get sacked. If we’re in a five-man protection and there are six guys at the line of scrimmage and the sixth guy comes off the edge, it’s the quarterback’s fault.”
Paul LaPolice
LaPolice said Tuesday that he’s comfortable with the core of the Bomber O-line, but that avoiding sacks comes down to more than just the men up front.
“I like the direction of the offensive line,” said LaPolice. “You look at Stanley Bryant coming in, Mathias Goossen getting extended, Chungh is one of the best young offensive linemen I’ve seen in a long time. I think there’s a good core here.
“I think there are things you can tweak to do differently,” he added. “There are things we can certainly do, and they’re not always on the offensive line. The quarterback holds the ball, we’re going to get sacked. If we’re in a five-man protection and there are six guys at the line of scrimmage and the sixth guy comes off the edge, it’s the quarterback’s fault.”
Then he referred to Henry Burris, the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player at age 40 and the only quarterback in the league to play 18 games. The REDBLACKS allowed the fourth fewest sacks in the league, while Burris was sacked on only six per cent of his drop backs.
Ottawa’s offensive line started the same five players every game this season, but another part of the reason Burris stayed upright was the type of offence the REDBLACKS ran.
“He played 18 games, but part of that process is the ball’s out of his hands quickly,” said LaPolice. “You want to make sure you do your best to have opportunities to take hits off the quarterback.
“Sacks will happen, but you want to minimize those things.”
Another key to limiting sacks will be improving the run game and preventing defences from teeing off on Willy. The Bombers averaged 84.8 rushing yards per game last season, good for sixth in the league but an improvement over 2014 when they ranked eighth with 84.1 per game.
“We want to make sure we can effectively run the football and take some pressure off the quarterback,” LaPolice stressed. “We want to do things to make sure we help the quarterback get the ball out of his hands quickly.
“I’d like to make sure we protect the football. I’d like to make sure we aren’t one-dimensional. I’d like to make sure we get the ball to our productive players.
“That’s what I’d like to see us do.”
