LaPolice on winless Redblacks: ‘You lose because of not performing your best level’

Paul LaPolice’s preference is to move on from the Ottawa Redblacks’ most recent loss as quickly as possible.

The Redblacks head coach saw his team remain winless on the season after a 40-33 loss to the Montreal Alouettes on Thursday.

“I don’t want a break, I want to get a win, I want to go back to work,” LaPolice said.

“We’ll have a couple days to get re-energized and figure out what we can do better to win a football game.”

The Redblacks, now 0-6, had a chance to pull even late in the game, but came up short when Darvin Adams dropped a pass from Caleb Evans in the end zone.

“Guys played hard, came back, put ourselves in a position to tie the game and we just didn’t finish,” LaPolice added.

The 54-year-old refused to blame the referees for keeping Ottawa out of the win column, keeping the focus on the team’s performance.

“As I told the players, you don’t lose because of the officiating,” LaPolice said, “you lose because of not performing your best level – that’s all I’ll say about that.”

Prior to the loss, Redblacks analyst Duke Ellingson pointed to the quarterback situation and LaPolice’s workload as factors working against the Reblacks.

“If it hadn’t been for the Masoli injury … they probably would have won last week [against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats],” Ellingson told TSN 1200. “With that situation right now, I would say they’ve kind of gotten farther away.

“ … To me it has gotten a little bit worse each week … and now without a true starting quarterback, I think they’re going to be in trouble for a few weeks here until they can figure out if Nick Arbuckle can pick up the offence and then play.”

LaPolice has been assuming the role of offensive coordinator this season which Ellingson thinks is hurting the team’s chances of winning.

“I don’t feel like he’s doing a great job as a game manager as a head coach because he’s so busy trying to be the offensive coordinator at the same time,” said Ellingson. I know there are issues with salary caps for the coaches, but I’ve been saying for a number of weeks on the post-game shows … I really believe they have to look at a way to get him relieved of those in-game play-calling duties.

“He can be very much a part of the game plan during the week and certainly have veto power during the game if he really wants to see something called, but I think he needs to step away from that role and be the head coach and manage things like ‘do we punt, do we kick a field goal, do we go for it, do we call a timeout, do we challenge?’

“I think he is too immersed in both of those roles to do either of them well. 

Ellingson thinks a coaching change could be possible in the coming weeks, but isn’t sure that would be enough to get the Redblacks back on track.

“One of the first things you always have to ask yourself is who would take over and what would that accomplish?” Ellingson said. “In the middle of the season, it’s always difficult to bring somebody in from outside the organization, but then you have to ask the question, who’s available?”

The CFL season has already seen one coaching change with Khari Jones fired by the Alouettes earlier this month after a poor start to their season.