http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/sport ... score.html
When Parcells Became Ordinary
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Nearly nine years ago, Bill Parcells boarded a plane for New Orleans carrying a reputation as perhaps the finest coach in the National Football League. He was taking the Patriots to the Super Bowl in his fourth season in New England, after having won two titles with the Giants.
But the week in New Orleans didn't go very well. Parcells spent much of it ducking questions about whether he was about to quit and take over the Jets. New England's kickoff coverage - usually a strength of a Parcells team - broke down, letting the Packers' Desmond Howard run wild, and Green Bay won, 35-21.
Parcells did not fly home with his team and never coached another game for the Patriots. He has not been back to the Super Bowl either.
As he comes home to Giants Stadium today with the Dallas Cowboys under his charge, it seems fair to ask a question that would have sounded silly during much of the last 20 years. Is Bill Parcells really a great coach?
He has shown that he can quickly turn a bad team into a playoff team, having done so with the Cowboys just as he did with the Giants, the Patriots and the Jets. But he has yet to prove that he can put together a championship team, or even a near-championship team, without his old defensive assistant, Bill Belichick.
Since leaving the Giants in 1990, Parcells has failed even to make the playoffs in two consecutive seasons, with Belichick or without him.
During the 12 years that they worked together - with the Giants, the Patriots and the Jets - their teams went 117-73-1, winning 11 playoff games and 2 Super Bowls. Their third Super Bowl together, the loss to the Packers, came during the only one of Parcells's four seasons in New England with Belichick at his side.
In his six seasons without Belichick - in New England and Dallas - Parcells has lost more games than he has won. His Belichick-less record, 44-47, is worse than Dave Wannstedt's career record or Wayne Fontes's or Jim Haslett's. Without his old understudy, Parcells has won as many playoff games as Bruce Coslett or Butch Davis: none.
Belichick, of course, has done better since the two parted ways. As the Patriots' coach, he has won three of the last four Super Bowls and appears headed for the playoffs - although probably for a short stay - again this season.
When they were partners, Belichick played the role of boy-genius tactician to Parcells's visionary commander in chief. Parcells ran the team, held more sway over personnel moves, spoke to reporters and ultimately took responsibility for the results. Belichick drew the X's and O's on one side of the ball.
In his first stint as a head coach, with Cleveland from 1991-95, Belichick often seemed lost without Parcells's leadership. Belichick made himself a villain for cutting the hometown favorite Bernie Kosar in humiliating fashion. The Browns finished below .500 in four of Belichick's five seasons, and he looked at times like a man who did his best work in the shadows.
When he returned to Parcells's staff on the Jets, the old boss didn't let him forget it. During one game, Parcells disagreed with Belichick's decision to blitz, as David Halberstam recounts in his new book about Belichick, "The Education of a Coach." But the play worked.
"Yeah, you're a genius, everyone knows it," Parcells said over a headset microphone that could be heard by other coaches, according to the book, "but that's why you failed as a head coach - that's why you'll never be a head coach. Some genius."
Given Parcells's intelligence and his flair for language, it hardly seemed like an accidental outburst. "Parcells has a very good use of words," Halberstam said last week. "He has a great caustic tongue, and he knows it."
The two coaches ultimately had a public breakup. Belichick quit as the Jets' coach after a day on the job -scribbling a resignation note that abbreviated the job as "H.C. of N.Y.J." - rather than continuing to work under Parcells, who was becoming a team executive.
For Halberstam's book, which has the feel of an authorized biography, he interviewed everyone from Belichick's high school teachers to ESPN football analysts. He did not talk to Parcells. But even if Belichick is not fond of his mentor, he seems to have learned from their collaboration. His years as the public face of the Patriots bear little resemblance to his Cleveland tenure.
Parcells, on the other hand, still seems to be struggling to find the strategic edge that his teams once had. His former assistants from the Giants and New England are largely absent from the Dallas coaching staff. Some, like Romeo Crennel (now the Browns' coach) and Charlie Weis (Notre Dame's coach), played key roles in New England's recent championships.
Parcells is a sure bet to make the Hall of Fame, and his short-term turnaround skills are beyond question. His record would probably be better if he had not taken on so many reclamation projects.
But he is 64 years old, and the Cowboys are potentially the last team he will lead. The most interesting part of their stretch run this season may be the chance it gives their coach to emerge from Belichick's shadow, as odd a notion as that once would have been.
