Bill Parcells is angry in this picture. Or hungry. It's hard to tell. One thing is for certain, though; he's looked a lot more miserable in recent times with the Cowboys than ferocious. And today, under somewhat odd circumstances, Bill has announced his retirement from football coaching.Again.
Bill "retired" from the New York Giants in 1991, just months after winning his second Super Bowl in five years. Before long, he was the New England Patriots head coach. In 1996, he "retired" from the Patriots, going so far as to say he had "no desire to continue as an NFL coach." Parcells caught the coaching bug after an eight-day retirement (which, really, ought to be enough for anybody) and took over the New York Jets.
Three years later in 2000, Bill must have realized the Giants hadn't switched their colors to green and white and he "retired" from the Jets, saying at the time that he'd "coached [his] last game" and that "[His] intention is to stay retired as a coach."
After doing some time on Sunday NFL Countdown, Parcells went back to coaching in 2003 with the Cowboys. And, frankly, if I were forced to work with a fat, pontificating, bloviating, slovenly, annoying, obnoxious, arrogant douchwad like Chris Berman I might look for other work, too.
What bugs me about all this is that Parcells is hailed as an absolute frickin' genius. John Clayton even wrote a column about how Parcells is going straight to the Hall of Fame. Well, okay, I guess.
Parcells has a 172-130-1 record in 19 seasons as a coach. So he averaged 9-7 over his career. If I told you your favorite team was going to go about 9-7 every year for the next 19 years, would you be excited? Maybe these days you would since it's often enough to make the playoffs. But still, that sounds like just a shade above mediocrity most of the time. If you're a shade above mediocrity for two decades, your record looks like 172-130-1.
Was Bill a good coach? Sure he was. His players listened, for the most part, and he developed some amazing talents such as Lawrence Taylor, Phil Simms, Joe Morris, Curtis Martin, Drew Bledsoe, etc., and he turned many of them into championship-level players when maybe their talent wasn't that high (see Simms and Bledsoe).
But in recent years, it's become apparent that Bill is just old. He's 65 now and when he faces a younger, more modern-day coach, he often doesn't fare well. The best and most glaring example was when the Cowboys were riding high this year and the New Orleans Saints came into Dallas, led by young Sean Payton. Payton and the Saints absolutely crushed the Cowboys, getting to a point where they were kneeling down with three minutes left out of respect. The Saints could have hung over 50 points on the 'boys that night without a doubt.
Parcells also hasn't won a playoff game in eight years, since those Jets won a single playoff game in 1998 on thier way to losing the AFC title game to the Oakland Raiders. It was ten years ago that Bill last went to the Super Bowl, with the Patriots losing to the Packers. And when was the last time he won a Super Bowl, you ask? Why, it was after the 1990 season with the Giants. Sixteen years ago. He won two Super Bowls with a very talented Giants team that had just reeled off 55 wins over five seasons.
My point is that people shouldn't wonder if the game has passed him by -- they should accept that the game zoomed by him many years ago. Parcells is a good coach and good coaches win the games they probably should win and get smoked in games that are a bit more of a challenge (sort of like Joe Tiller at Purdue, just as a "for instance" off the top of my head).
Parcells Cowboys played in two whole playoff games in his four years in Dallas and they lost both of them. Do you know what legendary coach Bill Parcells' playoff record is since those Giants Super Bowl days? 3-5. In the last sixteen years, his playoff record is 3-5.
So sure, go ahead and put him in the Hall of Fame. But let's not forget that Parcells is a genius because the media have annointed him so. His record doesn't bear it out.
12 comments:
It was great how ESPN covered this on their "Bottom Line." They gave his overall record with each team he coached, followed by the next year's coach and record for that team. It was like he was Michael Jordan or something, except they had to remind us that he was great.
On my post I compared Parcells to Larry Brown: both are brought in to rehabilitate struggling franchises, get them back on track for title contention, then split before the bottom falls out.
The main difference between these two coaches is that Brown didn't win a title until the end of his career, whereas Parcells peaked in 1991 and declined steadily since then (SB loss with Patriots, AFC Champ loss with Jets, playoffs but no wins with Cowboys).
The man's lost his fastball. Now he seems like less of a genius and more of an ornery old coot who can't understand while these twenty-something multi-millionaires aren't afraid of him anymore.
The Jets lost to the Broncos in the '98 playoffs, not Oakland.
No offense, but claiming that AVERAGING 9-7 over 19 seasons isn't incredible is stupid. I also think Parcells is overrated, but that career mark, especially given that he did it with a number of different teams, and considering that a considerable portion of that mark was done in the salary cap era, is remarkable.
Yes, if you told me that a coach would AVERAGE 9-7 over the next 19 seasons, I would tell you that coach was destined to be in the HOF.
If you can't recognize that Bill Parcells is one of the best coaches of the last 25 years, then someone has boiled your brain. http://valentinesviews.blogspot.com/2007/01/nfl-parcells-influence-on-nfl-has-been.html
Yes, if you told me that a coach would AVERAGE 9-7 over the next 19 seasons, I would tell you that coach was destined to be in the HOF.
Herm Edwards just became very excited by that news.
ed,
I won't argue with you that Parcells is one of the best coaches of the last 25 years, but in terms of influence and success, I'd say Bill Walsh has him beat by a country mile.
The factor that doesn't show in your "9-7 average" and "172-130-1 career record" is the fact that when he took over the giants they were awful and he had a 3-12 record the first season. In the next 7 seasons he only dropped below 9-7 once, with a 6-9 record. Then with the Pats he took over a terrible franchise and started with a 5-11 record to go 10-6, 6-10, and 11-5 the next three seasons. His worst record with the Jets was 8-8. I will admit that he was not impressive in his time with the Cowboys, but the only losing season he had was the 6-10 season in 2004. He took over that trainwreck of a team and went 10-6 in his first season. I would argue that he made some excellent drafting decisions for the future of the franchise and left the team better than when he arrived. I think he would have had more success if he could have had more control.
A better stat to look at would be the fact that in his 19 years he only had 5 seasons with less than 8 wins (2 of them in the first year with the team) and had 9 years with over 10 wins, also making the playoffs in 10 season. You can't argue with rings, and the man's got a few of 'em.
P.S. That being said, I will agree that the game has passed him by and he's not the coach he used to be.
Someone mentioned how great Bill Walsh was. Yes, he developed Joe Montana and used Don Coryell's West Coast offense, and won 3 SBs, but consider:
Walsh turned around only 1 franchise while The Tuna turned around 4 MORBID franchises.
Ask any Jet fan if they would have taken 9-7 and a shot at the playoffs after years of debacle under Bruce Coslet, Pete Caroll and Richie Kotite. Ask any football fan if they could find anyone to take the Pats seriously for several years after their SB appearance versus the Bears. Ask Cowboy fans how the hell the team won 10 games with Quincy Carter at QB. Ask Giants fans how they consistently were a contender for the Lombardi trophy despite lacking a gamebreaker on offense and an average secondary, at best. Finally, ask any Niner fan or Bill Walsh, himself who game him his worst playoff defeats - 17-3 and 49-3. Oh, yeah. It was Bill.
One last thing - the guy might know a few things about football if his coaching staff included Belichik, Crennel, Mangini, Groh, Weis.
He got divorced in 2002 or 2003 and his wife took over half of his assets and then some; he needed the money only reason he went to Dallas and it showed.
Parcells is very overrated, I totally agree.
You know who's underrated? Chuck Noll.
The guy won FOUR FUCKING SUPER BOWLS (no one else has ever done that FYI.. not Bellichick, not Parcells, not Walsh, no one) and is never mentioned as one of the top 5 coaches in NFL history.
The only time he really struggled was the last five or so years of his career when NFL salaries skyrocketed out of the Steelers price rants and there was no salary cap yet, so he was constantly out-manned.
I am making it a small mission of mine to downplay Bill Parcells, and give more credit to Chuck Noll damnit!!!
"...if I were forced to work with a fat, pontificating, bloviating, slovenly, annoying, obnoxious, arrogant douchwad..."
Dude, you lived with one for years; how would working with one of those types be any worse?
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