Parcells

by Bill Parcells

  Drew Bledsoe entered the draft following a stellar junior season, earning All-American honors by guiding one of the nation’s top offenses. Despite a college career of only twenty-eight games, his passing yards (7,373) ranked second in Washington State history. After graduating from Washington’s Walla Walla High, he had been the first true freshman to start at quarterback for the Cougars since 1960. At six-five and 230 pounds, with a powerful arm made more dangerous by his pocket presence, Bledsoe looked like he’d been chosen straight from central casting to portray a star NFL quarterback. Hollywood-handsome, he owned a reputation as the All-American from the laid-back Northwest.

  Although Rick Mirer had set Notre Dame’s record for total offense yards (6,691), he wasn’t as prolific. But Mirer had earned a blue-chip pedigree as an exceptional three-year starter for the storied program. The 49ers, who wouldn’t select a player until late in the first round, were so enamored with Mirer that they offered New England their draft slate of seven picks for the first overall position. Bill Walsh, in his second stint at Stanford after retiring from the 49ers, had highly recommended Mirer to San Francisco. Walsh compared the six-three, 210-pounder to another Notre Dame product who had helped him win three Super Bowls: Joe Montana. Given New England’s quarterback situation, Bill Parcells declined San Francisco’s bountiful proposal, and focused on selecting Mirer or Bledsoe.

  Skilled at play-action passing, Mirer showed superior mobility and poise, having experienced more pressure-packed games at Notre Dame. However, few quarterbacks, including those in the pros, matched Bledsoe’s arm strength. NFL quarterbacks often struggle to make accurate throws on corner routes, which require pass-catchers to run up the field before turning at a 45-degree angle toward the sideline. The pigskin must travel, say, 40 yards on a clothesline. At predraft workouts Bledsoe wowed scouts by repeatedly unleashing laser-like throws. And with a swashbuckler’s presence, he was tough in the pocket.

  New England’s evaluation of Bledsoe, twenty-one, and Mirer, twenty-three, was so exhaustive that even the two-year age difference was weighed, but the franchise’s monumental decision boiled down to the younger prospect’s physical gifts. Like other talented quarterbacks, Mirer proved capable of making most throws, but Bledsoe had flaunted the ability to make all of them with the strongest arm Parcells had ever seen. New England’s coach envisioned the native of Ellensburg, Washington, transforming the team’s passing game. Parcells touted Bledsoe to team executive Patrick Forte, who relayed the praise to the quarterback’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, during talks about New England’s interest. But when Bledsoe flew cross-country to visit the organization, Parcells left the quarterback bewildered by his unflattering remarks.

  “You know, most people in the league think that Rick Mirer is better than you are,” Parcells said. After the predraft session, Steinberg fumed to the media about Parcells’s behavior. “Bill was arrogant, challenging, insulting. I wish I could convey to you the tone of disinterest. It was almost like, ‘Why are you here?’ ”

  Parcells responded, “It wasn’t my job to impress him. It was his job to impress me.” But Parcells was impressed enough to remove any drama involving New England’s first pick. On the morning of the draft, April 25, Patrick Forte and James Hausmann met Steinberg at the Marriott Marquis in New York to strike a deal. After twelve hours of negotiations, the two Patriots executives and Bledsoe’s representative agreed on a six-year contract worth $14.5 million, including a $4.5 million signing bonus.

  Mirer went second overall to the Seattle Seahawks. With three selections in the second round, New England picked linebacker Chris Slade (Virginia), offensive tackle Todd Rucci (Penn State), and wideout Vincent Brisby (Northeast Louisiana State). The fourth round brought the Patriots defensive tackle Kevin Johnson (Texas Southern) and defensive back Corwin Brown (Michigan). Kicker Scott Sisson (Georgia Tech) and tight end Rich Griffith (Arizona) came in the fifth round. The next round produced defensive back Lawrence Hatch (Florida). Wideout Troy Brown (Marshall) was plucked in the eighth round to conclude what would prove to be a fabulous draft class.

  Drew Bledsoe’s predraft visit to Patriots headquarters had given him an early glimpse of Parcells’s mind games, stridency, and demanding style. Now the testy head coach refused to use the term that reporters were attaching to Bledsoe, “franchise quarterback,” insisting that the former Cougar needed to earn it. Despite Bledsoe’s great potential, Parcells bristled at the twenty-one-year-old’s being anointed an elite quarterback before he had acquired even the flimsiest body of NFL work. To make matters worse, hyperbole from local pundits was already placing Bledsoe in the same category as Boston’s sports icons: Larry Bird, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, Ted Williams.

  The head coach believed that how the quarterback responded to adulation would determine his future. At rookie camp a few weeks after the draft, Parcells warned Bledsoe, “Just remember one thing: I don’t want a celebrity quarterback on my team. I hate celebrity quarterbacks. You understand?” He gave Bledsoe his criterion for an ideal quarterback: constantly guiding the offense into the end zone while caring more about winning than individual statistics.

  Despite Bledsoe’s lucrative contract, Parcells declared the starting job an open competition that included backups Tommy Hodson, Scott Secules, and Scott Zolak. And whenever Parcells felt thirsty during practice, he forced Bledsoe to fetch Gatorade. Phil Simms, entering his final NFL season, predicted that Bledsoe would need skin like an armadillo’s to coexist with Parcells, but the same could be said for Bledsoe’s teammates, who included thirty new Patriots.

  When starting left guard Reggie Redding showed up ten pounds overweight, Parcells released him. Then for six consecutive days, Parcells placed his team on two-a-day drills, for the equivalent of two weeks’ worth of practice. “You’d get arrested today if you did that with the new rules,” Parcells says, alluding to NFL policies instituted in 2011 that limit practices. Although his grueling schedule went against NFL norms, he felt that New England needed more work than virtually any team in the league. He wanted players who could withstand the physicality of practice, even in sweltering weather, and tolerate hectoring from drill-sergeant coaches. Based on Parcells’s experience, some of his athletes wouldn’t be able to handle the culture shock, and he wanted to weed them out as swiftly as possible.

  He cut linebacker David Howard, the team’s second-leading tackler in 1992, for sitting out practice with a toe injury that Parcells deemed minor. Just as players anticipated with relief that a grueling practice was ending, Parcells commanded them to run two 220-yard sprints before finally letting them go.

  Despite Bledsoe’s awe-inducing arm, Parcells quibbled with the quarterback’s throwing motion. He instructed Bledsoe to raise his delivery point a few inches, and gave new wideouts coach Chris Palmer the special assignment of helping the rookie do so. During training camp Palmer and Bledsoe worked together almost daily in the Patriots’ fifty-yard bubble facility. As a drill to help Bledsoe hold the ball higher before throws, Palmer placed several dots of different colors on a net, and the quarterback made sure his right hand was raised above them before unleashing the ball. Bledsoe would stand a few feet from the net before dropping back to pass as Palmer called out the color of the dot that he wanted the rookie to hit. In time Bledsoe altered his throwing motion more to Parcells’s liking, but neither the rookie nor the assistant received any kudos from their head coach.

  One morning Parcells walked into an office shared by Chris Palmer and Charlie Weis. The head coach tossed a box of Dots, the popular candy, on Palmer’s desk. “Here. Maybe you and Bledsoe can share these while he’s throwing over the dots.” Parcells walked out without saying another word, leaving Palmer feeling mocked despite his efforts. Weis waited for Parcells to walk down the hall before laughing hard.

  During his preseason debut Bledsoe showed promise while playing in one half of a 13–7 loss versus the San Diego Chargers. He completed 9 of 21, including a nine-yard touchdown pass to rookie wideout Troy
Brown. Bledsoe told reporters that he had expected to perform better, but was generally pleased with his progress. The next day in practice, Bledsoe’s first throw went awry. Parcells, who had been scrutinizing the rookie’s newspaper quotes, pounced.

  “Still happy with your progress, Drew?!”

  Drew Bledsoe often showed up five minutes before meetings looking bleary-eyed, a tendency that reinforced Parcells’s belief that the twenty-one-year-old was immature, like many young men his age, and oblivious to his enormous responsibilities. In an ideal situation Parcells would have gradually developed Bledsoe behind a veteran, but given New England’s dire straits and its rookie quarterback’s dazzling talents, Parcells felt compelled to accelerate his learning curve. “I was pretty hard on him. I had to get him ready,” Parcells says. “And he wasn’t going to get there through osmosis.”

  Before playing for an easygoing coach in college, Mike Price, Bledsoe had experienced a disciplinarian in high school, Gary Mires, but Mires was nowhere near as implacable and demanding as Parcells. The criticism was worst on Fridays, when the head coach fine-tuned New England’s game plan. During simulated action Parcells stood a few feet behind Bledsoe, urging throws while the quarterback scanned the defense. One time Bledsoe stood in shotgun formation, detected an imminent blitz, and smartly called an audible, but it didn’t come fast enough for Parcells, who whistled a stop to the action.

  “Bledsoe! You don’t have time to stand back there and order lobster thermidor for dinner!” Bledsoe, who would never forget the line, recalls, “I couldn’t wait until Sunday to get some peace and quiet.”

  There was a method to the coach’s madness. Alluding to the many challenges on game day, Parcells explains, “I’m trying to create a distraction that the players have to deal with.” However, the player who had been raised on positive reinforcement and lauded throughout his brilliant high school and college careers chafed at Parcells’s relentlessness. Bledsoe often wanted to scream back at his overbearing head coach, but dared not challenge the franchise’s leader.

  Bledsoe’s mother, Barbara, though, had reached the breaking point. She had seen her son berated enough by Parcells, so she visited the head coach’s office at Foxboro Stadium to express her concerns. Sitting across from Parcells, Barbara Bledsoe said, “I don’t think you should talk to Drew the way you do. It’s not going to help him perform better.”

  Parcells responded politely. “Well, Mrs. Bledsoe, what you need to do is not watch the games, because this isn’t high school football. This is professional football, and this young man is getting paid to win games. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

  Parcells acknowledged having a foul mouth made worse by a swift temper, and the combination sometimes left him ashamed of his cruel remarks. He respected Barbara Bledsoe, but felt that an important aspect of his job was applying pressure, often verbally, to her son. “He was in a man’s world being asked to do man things,” Parcells says. “And my approach was not always what a nurturing mother might give her son.”

  During their discussion Barbara Bledsoe might as well have been from Venus, and Bill Parcells from Mars. She left the head coach’s office without finding common ground, and kept away from practice while publicly criticizing Parcells’s approach. But Bledsoe’s father, Mac, formerly an offensive coach on Drew’s high school team, saw some pluses in Parcells’s methods. For one thing, it helped his boy fit in with teammates who resented a rookie earning millions more than they did. So Mac Bledsoe, who years later would author a book called Parenting with Dignity, counseled his son to look past the Tuna’s biting remarks.

  Meanwhile, on the final weekend of August, with training camp nearing an end, Parcells’s new home in Foxboro was still under construction. As usual, Judy oversaw the project by herself, but she coaxed her husband into taking a little time to check it out. In their bathroom Judy asked her husband for his thoughts on their new Corian sink tops. Glancing at them, Parcells replied, “If they can block for the quarterback, I like them.” As the couple exited the property, Judy asked if he preferred mulch or wood chips for landscaping. Parcells said, “I don’t know. If they can run with the ball, I’ll take the wood chips.”

  Their quick visit only confirmed for his wife that after a two-year hiatus, Bill Parcells had fully reverted to his football obsession.

  Drew Bledsoe easily won the Patriots starting job with an impressive preseason, completing 60 percent of his passes while throwing five touchdowns and one interception for a 106.0 rating. Once the regular season commenced, though, Parcells’s measured outlook on his celebrated rookie proved prescient. As a play-action quarterback Bledsoe struggled, and New England lost 10 of 11 games. Bledsoe showed glimpses of brilliance, but mostly resembled an ordinary rookie. A sprained knee caused him to miss three contests, including the team’s sole victory, 23–21, versus the Phoenix Cardinals on October 10.

  Bledsoe’s low point came at Pittsburgh on December 5, when he threw five interceptions and fumbled four times. Down 17–14 late, he orchestrated a 94-yard drive to Pittsburgh’s 1. With a few seconds left, New England needed only 12 inches for a touchdown that would snap its six-game losing streak. On the contest’s final play Bledsoe appeared to score on a quarterback sneak, ramming himself against a pile of massive bodies at the goal line. However, the rookie failed to extend his right arm, which held the ball, to ensure that the pigskin broke the plane of the end zone. As time expired game officials ruled that the ball was inches short, and New England fell to 1-12.

  Parcells was furious with his quarterback for neglecting to poke the pigskin over the goal line. When Bledsoe returned to the sideline, Parcells yelled, “Anybody has enough sense to do that.” Parcells knew that he shared the responsibility for not reminding Bledsoe before the play, but with his Patriots record little different from that of his failed predecessor, Parcells used the moment to send a message to his quarterback, whose sense of entitlement seemed to be stifling progress. All of New England’s losses during its seven-game skid were close, hard-fought contests except for one, a sign that the team was closer than it seemed to turning the tide.

  Parcells told Bledsoe, “You were the fair-haired boy in the NFL going into this year. But next year there will be another fair-haired boy coming out of college. His name is Heath Shuler. And the year after that, there will be another one, and you’ll be the guy who’s forgotten, unless you wake up and turn yourself around.”

  Despite the harsh assessment, Parcells’s words rang true. With only four games left, Bledsoe had produced seven touchdowns, 13 interceptions, and a completion rate of less than 50 percent. Worst of all, he still hadn’t guided his team to a victory. So instead of sulking about Parcells’s latest diatribe, Bledsoe took it to heart. For the first time in his football life, the can’t-miss quarterback realized that without drastic improvement, he would end up being a bust.

  Starting the following day, and throughout the week of practice, Bledsoe showed increased intensity while delivering sharper performances. He also began using Parcells’s sniping as motivation. “I realized he was turning up the stress level in practice,” Bledsoe says, “just as it would happen in games.” In their next contest, the Patriots snapped their skid versus the Cincinnati Bengals, for Bledsoe’s first NFL victory in eight starts. New England began to mesh as a team, going on a winning streak that included handing Bill Belichick’s Browns a 20–17 loss, and beating the Indianapolis Colts 38–0, as Bledsoe produced a perfect passer rating.

  Even during their struggles, the Patriots had been drawing relatively large home crowds for the first time in recent memory, thanks to the optimism generated by the presence of Parcells and Bledsoe. More than 53,000 fans, including businessman Robert Kraft and his two oldest sons, showed up at Foxboro Stadium for their 4-11 team’s finale against the 9-6 Dolphins, who needed a victory to make the playoffs. Continuing their improved play, the Patriots led 10–7 at halftime. In a dramatic, high-scoring fourth quarter, the lead changed five times before the
period ended tied at 27. In overtime, Bledsoe absorbed a blitzer’s wallop while tossing a 36-yard pass to wideout Michael Timpson, delivering New England a riveting 33–27 victory. The touchdown, Bledsoe’s 27th completion on 43 throws, was his fourth of the game. More important, the rookie quarterback had guided the suddenly sizzling Patriots to their longest winning streak since 1988.

  During his postgame Q&A, Parcells offered rare praise. “How do you like that quarterback? Isn’t he something?”

  Although Rick Mirer captured the AFC’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award, Bledsoe’s late-season flourish confirmed New England’s draft choice. Bledsoe finished the season with 15 touchdowns and 15 interceptions, completing 50 percent on 2,494 passing yards. Interceptions were not uncommon for a rookie, but only a handful of NFL rookie quarterbacks had ever passed for more yards.

  Many in the sellout crowd for the team’s last game, though, believed that the franchise’s departure was imminent, which made the victory bittersweet. James Orthwein was still CEO of the St. Louis NFL Partnership, created to deliver a franchise to his hometown. After Bledsoe’s game winner, spectators chanted, “Don’t take our team! Don’t take our team! Don’t take our team!” But Foxboro Stadium’s dearth of premium seating, increasingly a major source of revenue for NFL clubs, made the building anachronistic. Only a fraction of the seats had chair backs, and the predominant aluminum benches often froze during the winter.

  Unsurprisingly, the Patriots generated the least money of any NFL club. Paul Tagliabue deemed the stadium “unacceptable” for the long-term future of the Patriots, signaling he would approve their relocation barring a new or upgraded arena. However, moving the Patriots required their owner to void a lease controlled by Robert Kraft through his stake in Foxboro Stadium. Only a buyout could prevent the team from being legally tethered to the building until 2002, still eight years away. In January 1994, Orthwein offered Kraft $75 million for control of Foxboro Stadium, and the ability to break free immediately, but Kraft declined the proposal. Instead, he countered with his own offer: $172 million for the team itself. This was a stunning sum, given that the Patriots were among the NFL’s least valuable teams. It was $32 million more than the previous record paid by Jerry Jones for the Cowboys in 1989.