What Keeps Bill Parcells Awake at Night

[MavKikiNYC]

That stupid Eastern liberal bias rag aka NYTimes has an extensive (10 pages) and fairly interesting piece on Parcells. Whether you admire him or think he's done, it's a little bit more in-depth than you get from the typical newspaper piece.

Here's the link (requires a free registration):

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/sp...pagewanted=all

Here's the first page:

October 29, 2006
Play Magazine
What Keeps Bill Parcells Awake at Night

By MICHAEL LEWIS
MONDAY
It’s more than 16 hours since the Dallas Cowboys finished their first game of this season, and 25 journalists are still waiting to hear what happened. Of course, they know that the Cowboys lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 24-17. After racing out to a 10-0 lead, the Cowboys collapsed. They threw interceptions, dropped passes, allowed sacks, committed penalties. The journalists know this, but they also know that they saw only the same tiny slice of the game that the fans saw on TV. They don’t really know why the team fell apart, and the only way to find out is from the inside — from some coach with a knowledge of the plays, who has studied the game film. But since the head coach, Bill Parcells, forbids his 14 assistant coaches from talking to the news media, the pool of possible informants is one. It’s as if a sensational crime has occurred in broad daylight and there’s only one witness. And he is an extraordinarily reluctant witness.

The journalists and cameramen loiter for a good hour in the hallways of the Dallas Cowboys’ practice facility until Parcells finally arrives. He walks to what is in real life a small lunch table in an atrium but that on television will appear, thanks to a cloth backdrop behind him embellished with logos of the Dallas Cowboys and the Ford Motor Company, as dignified as an official briefing room.

“Fire away,” he says, and glares at them.

Bill Parcells is the only coach in N.F.L. history to take four different teams to the playoffs, but that only begins to set him apart. In 1983, in his first N.F.L. head coaching job, he took over a New York GiantsNew England Patriots a year after they finished 2-14. Two seasons later they were 10-6 and in the playoffs for the first time in eight years; another two seasons later, they were in the Super Bowl. From there Parcells went to the Jets, who were coming off a 1-15 season, and coached them to a 9-7 record in his first year and a 12-4 record in his second. The Cowboys had finished 5-11 three seasons in a row before Parcells arrived in 2003. His first year they were 10-6 and reached the playoffs. No N.F.L. coach has ever proven himself so clearly to be a device for turning a losing team into a winning one. And yet, even now, as he begins his 16th season as a head coach in the N.F.L., he lives the psychological equivalent of a hand-to-mouth existence. team that had one winning season over the previous decade, turned it around on a dime and led it to Super Bowl titles in the 1986 and 1990 seasons. In 1993, he became head coach of the New England Patriots a year after they finished 2-14. Two seasons later they were 10-6 and in the playoffs for the first time in eight years; another two seasons later, they were in the Super Bowl. From there Parcells went to the Jets, who were coming off a 1-15 season, and coached them to a 9-7 record in his first year and a 12-4 record in his second. The Cowboys had finished 5-11 three seasons in a row before Parcells arrived in 2003. His first year they were 10-6 and reached the playoffs. No N.F.L. coach has ever proven himself so clearly to be a device for turning a losing team into a winning one. And yet, even now, as he begins his 16th season as a head coach in the N.F.L., he lives the psychological equivalent of a hand-to-mouth existence.

After the late-night flight home from Jacksonville, he went to his condo to catch a few hours’ sleep. He woke up not long after he nodded off, choking on his own bile. “It only happens to me during the football season,” he says. “It happens no other time of the year. And it wasn’t something I ate.” After that, he couldn’t sleep at all. He found that his ex-wife, Judy — they divorced in 2002, after 40 years of marriage — had left a message on his answering machine. She saw the game on TV. “Please don’t let it affect your health,” she said.

He still returns in his mind to a question his wife often asked him: why do you do what you do? Coaching football doesn’t make him obviously happy. Even in the beginning, in the late 1960’s, when he was an assistant coach at West Point, he would come home after games so evidently displeased that his eldest daughter would sit on the sofa next to him, silently, and put on a long face. She was 5 years old and had no idea what had happened; she just picked it up from his expression that postgame wasn’t happy time. “When my wife asked me that question,” he says, “I never had a good answer. There was no answer. There is no answer.”

“Fire away,” he says to the 25 people who are here to ask him why he lost. And they do. They ask the same question 10 different ways: who messed up? And he gives them the same answer 10 different ways: none of your damn business.

Thus begins what Parcells calls assignment-of-blame day. He knows exactly who is to blame, of course, because he has spent hours watching the video. At 5 a.m. he gave up trying to sleep and came into his office to study it. It wasn’t until then that he really saw the game. When watching video, Parcells doesn’t usually waste a lot of time studying his quarterback. That’s one player he can see pretty well during the game. But this morning has been different. Against the Jaguars, Drew Bledsoe missed throws he once made in his sleep. He was indecisive and slow to see open receivers. As a result, he held the ball far too long. Last season Bledsoe was sacked 49 times and smacked in the act of throwing 82 times, a league high. He has been showing the symptoms of a quarterback who is looking at the rush instead of his receivers — which is to say a quarterback who should no longer be playing in the N.F.L. Parcells studied the video to determine if Bledsoe had indeed lost his nerve. The video didn’t say. But the video did reveal that the Cowboys’ cornerbacks were soft and that his left tackle’s inability to handle the pass rush had the potential to ruin the Cowboys’ season.

It galls him that the media’s curiosity so closely echoes his inner concerns (by far the most common question is, are you thinking about benching Bledsoe?), and makes him even less inclined than usual to satisfy it. “We’re in the business of collecting information,” Parcells likes to say. “We’re not in the business of exchanging information.” His practices are closed to reporters after the first 15 minutes, and he’s comically slow to divulge the most basic facts about the state of his team — like, for instance, which players are injured. At this very moment the Dallas Cowboys have several key players hobbling around the trainers’ room, looking distinctly unwell. Left tackle Flozell Adams walks as if he should be on crutches, and cornerback Aaron Glenn is supposed to have arthroscopic surgery in eight days. And yet Parcells’s postgame injury report consists of a single player, a third-string wide receiver named Jamaica Rector. When I ask him why Flozell Adams runs with a distinct gimp, Parcells laughs and says, “That’s just how he runs.”

He isn’t exchanging information. He isn’t saying who’s hurt. And he isn’t voicing his doubts about his quarterback. The fifth time a reporter asks Parcells what, exactly, might lead him to replace Bledsoe with the backup, Tony Romo, he glares for a beat or two, and then says, “Bledsoe’s starting on Sunday, O.K.?”

[jthig32]

Fascinating article. Thanks for the link.

[Flacolaco]

don't try to humazine him damnit!

Im closing my eyes and ears and keeping on with the "he's a grumpy old stubborn stubborn stubborn man" state of mind.

I actually didn't know that he was divorced.....

[dirno2000]

Great article, thanks for posting.

Against the Jaguars, Drew Bledsoe missed throws he once made in his sleep. He was indecisive and slow to see open receivers. As a result, he held the ball far too long.

Although this is not a direct quote, I'm pretty sure that the writer didn't make these observations on his own.