Nice piece by Darren Cameron.  Buck was a frustrating football player but a great person who has made an investment in the community. 

 

http://www.bluebombers.com/article/blog-buck-pierce-the-player-the-coach-the-man

 

Enjoy!

You feel the same way about Buck as I do about Etch. We should compare notes.

You feel the same way about Buck as I do about Etch. We should compare notes.

 

Let me get this straight, you want to write up a Bucketch list?

 

You feel the same way about Buck as I do about Etch. We should compare notes.

 

Let me get this straight, you want to write up a Bucketch list?

 

Yeah. I like that.

Here we go again. I don't know why everyone thinks Buck is some kind of natural coach. I'm sure he's a nice guy and invests in the community, but none of us has really seen how he's done as a coach. You all say look what he did with Cotton...BS, I think Cotton was already that good. What I want to say is, wtf did he do with Grigsby with all the time he had with him? All I saw with Grigsby was him going down hill as far as his RB duties. But again, was that all on Grigsby, or crappy coaching? That's up to the HC to decide. If he's a good coach, then fine, keep him around, if he's not, I don't care how many people love him, give him the boot.

Sorry, I don't have a man-crush on Buck like a lot of you do. I couldn't stand him as a Bomber, not that we had any other option with the crappy GMing we had at the time and not having a proper QBC. I have a man-crush on Khari, so I know how most of you feel, but I don't want him here if he's not ready to be an OC.

Some of you need to take off your rose colored glasses.

How is buck supposed to teach a guy to not trip on defenders finger tips or pick the right gap at full speed? Trick question, he can't. Both of those key failures are on the RB.. He either has the power to run thru pinky fingers or he has the vision to see the holes made by oline..

 

Not sure if serious ... what do you think a running back coach does if he doesn't go over game film with them and point out snaps where the runner missed going through the right gap, etc?

 

There are literally dozens of things Buck could do with a guy to teach him to not get tripped up by a defender. Evaluate his running style ... everything from his hip stance to his pad level or body lean to make sure he's driving at defenders with force to break through a tackle as opposed to just running at them. Get him to work on keeping his eyes up to spot those arm tackle defenders.

 

A lot of what they'll teach running backs at lower levels in the fundamental stages is the basic principle of see it - prepare for it. Locate the first potential tackler, prepare for him. That's where Grigsby sucked. The fundamental stuff. Pierce could have worked with him to improve that in so many ways - and I'm not suggesting he didn't - I'm just suggesting that you're incorrect when you say you can't teach that stuff. A lot of it is instinct, but a lot of it isn't.

 

To Pierce's credit ... I thought he did a lot to improve Grigsby's game. Pass pro and commitment to a north-south style with no hesitation especially. Grigsby's issue was he just wasn't born to be a running back.

And this is what I was getting at mike.. Stuff that grigsby sucked at was taught at like peewee level.. He SHOULD have known how to keep his pads level, keep his centre of gravity low and keep churning the legs.. He should have also picked up field vision and seeing the gaps form and develop long before he landed here.. Bucks job isn't to redevelop fundamental skills or if it was, grigsby wasn't exactly a star pupil.. Obviously, his job would have been to improve the RBs game play and I thought he did so with both grigsby and cotton.. I also believe his role was more to prepare the RBs to work in the offence while trying to fix their issues. I thought he did that well too as grigsbys blocking did get better as well..