The BC Lions announced on Tuesday that they had hired Buck Pierce to take on the role of Head Coach. Pierce previously held the position of Offensive Coordinator with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers prior to taking the role with BC.
“Buck was a candidate we identified early in this process as someone ready to step in and lead our franchise. His track record in the Canadian Football League as both a player and a coach says it all. We are excited and proud to bring him back to the BC Lions as our 28th head coach.” stated General Manager Ryan Rigmaiden.
Pierce began his coaching career in 2014 following his retirement as a quarterback. He worked as the running back coach for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2014 and 2015 before working as the quarterbacks coach from 2016 to 2019. Pierce became the offensive coordinator for Winnipeg after Paul LaPolice vacated the role of Winnipeg’s offensive coordinator to become the Head Coach of the Ottawa RedBlacks.
“I’m extremely excited and honoured to take this next step in my coaching career with the organization that originally brought me here nearly 20 years ago,” stated Pierce. “My sincere thanks go out to Mr. Doman, Duane Vienneau, Neil McEvoy, Ryan Rigmaiden, and the entire organization for instilling their belief that I can lead this great franchise. The building blocks are in place here and we look forward to getting to work as we strive to bring the Grey Cup back to British Columbia.”
Pierce’s playing career began with the BC Lions in 2005 where he played for 5 seasons and had 34 regular season starts over that span and 2 in the 2008 playoffs. He played for Winnipeg from 2010 to 2013 where he started in 32 games including all 16 that he played in in 2011. He finished his career with BC after being traded in 2013 and started in his last game to close out the regular season. He finished his CFL playing career completing 64.2% of his passes for 15,289 yards with 76 touchdowns and 63 interceptions.
The Lions had clear internal expectations to push for the Grey Cup this past season in a year in which they were the Grey Cup hosts and made mid-season acquisitions that pushed them over the salary cap. Pierce has been to the last 5 Grey Cups with Winnipeg the last 4 of which he was the offensive coordinator so the hiring makes sense.
The BC Lions have abandoned the run in each of their playoff losses in the last 3 seasons so they need to break that pattern. Pierce should be a good hire to improve run commitment when you consider the fact that Winnipeg has arguably been the best smash-mouth football team over the entirety of Pierce’s tenure as Winnipeg’s Offensive Coordinator with Andrew Harris and Brady Oliveira dominating defenses over that span. However, the one caveat would be the fact that Winnipeg’s last Grey Cup appearance was frankly not a well-coached game on both sides of the ball with Winnipeg handing the ball off only 11 times to the reigning Most Outstanding Player Brady Oliveira in the Grey Cup. In that loss, they continued to force a passing game that was not working. Regardless, BC has a head coach who has had much success as a coach and also has 9 years of CFL playing experience under his belt.
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