Parcells

by Bill Parcells

  Parcells never regained confidence in O’Donnell, putting the Jets in a revolving-door situation at quarterback. However, with Bill Belichick’s feisty defense led by cornerback Aaron Glenn, and stellar special teams play featuring Leon Johnson, the Jets competed in every game. Their largest margin of defeat would end up being only 11 points versus Jimmy Johnson’s Dolphins on October 12. Regardless of who played quarterback for Gang Green, Keyshawn Johnson backed up his huge ego by proudly playing like a “great giraffe.” His performances helped mend the locker-room schism caused by his autobiography, while self-effacing Wayne Chrebet provided an ideal complement, using his Velcro-like hands for clutch receptions.

  After leading the NFL in no-shows the previous season, Jets fans had turned their home stadium into a deafening mosh pit of overflow crowds, and what had once been an oft-used headline, “Same Old Jets,” had vanished from the tabloids. Nonetheless, Parcells guarded ruthlessly against complacency. Former personnel director Dick Haley recalls, “He prodded the coaches to ‘press the players.’ That was one of his favorite terms. He had his thumb on everybody.”

  Parcells constantly tweaked the bottom of the roster during “family business” with Mike Tannenbaum, habitually releasing underachieving players and signing new blood wherever he found it, including the Arena Football League. “As human beings,” Parcells explains, “we generally respond to one thing, and that’s pressure—whatever circumstances create a feeling of necessity. Now, maybe some psychologists would disagree with that. But I have found that to be true in my life experience. Some of us respond favorably to pressure, and others respond unfavorably. But like it says in The Coaches, you just can’t do a bad job in this business and hope nobody notices, because everybody’s going to notice.”

  Kept on edge despite their tremendous strides, the 7-4 Jets faced the 8-3 Vikings at Giants Stadium with a chance at leading the AFC East. New York went up 7–0 the first time it touched the ball, with Leon Johnson returning a punt 66 yards for a touchdown. Neil O’Donnell started because of a knee injury to Foley, and Gang Green raced to a 23–7 lead.

  The Vikings, however, put on an impressive final period, showing why they were co-leaders of the NFC Central. Brad Johnson’s touchdown pass at the end of regulation cut Minnesota’s deficit to 23–21. With no time left, the Vikings attempted a two-point conversion instead of an extra-point-after, trying to send the game into overtime. Most of the 70,000-plus spectators rose from their seats, exhorting the Jets defense. After taking a handoff from the 2, tailback Robert Smith bounced to his right, but defensive end Rick Lyle penetrated Minnesota’s line and grabbed Smith’s ankle, allowing his teammates to gang-tackle the runner.

  The pivotal stop upped New York’s record to 8-4, ensuring a non-losing season for the first time since 1993. Jets fans exploded with a sustained ovation, bringing Leon Hess to tears in the owner’s box. Several minutes later, Parcells declared to a raucous locker room, “They can’t call us losers anymore.”

  The Jets lost two of their next three, but with a 9-6 mark entering the regular-season finale, a victory at Detroit would guarantee Gang Green’s first playoff appearance since 1991. Parcells’s team also maintained an outside shot at capturing the franchise’s first division title since the merger. The 8-7 Lions, with home-field advantage, likewise faced a win-and-they’re-in situation. Detroit boasted a high-powered offense behind league co-MVP Barry Sanders, only 131 rushing yards short of the lofty 2,000-yard barrier.

  At the late-December afternoon matchup, temperatures inside the Pontiac Silverdome reached 72 degrees, while it was 34 outside. New York’s Neil O’Donnell performed with renewed confidence and effectiveness as the Jets went up 10–0 on Adrian Murrell’s 14-yard run in the first quarter, quieting the 77,624 spectators. Gang Green led 10–3 at halftime after holding Barry Sanders, the focus of Bill Belichick’s defense, to only 20 rushing yards.

  On New York’s opening drive of the third quarter, however, Neil O’Donnell’s pass to Richie Anderson ricocheted off the fullback’s hands, leading to an interception. Detroit parlayed the gaffe into a field goal, cutting the lead to four. For Gang Green’s next series, Parcells replaced O’Donnell with special-teamer Ray Lucas, who had made brief quarterback appearances in the first and second periods. Parcells intended to occasionally recharge an offense showing modest production since O’Donnell had reclaimed his starting role.

  Although Lucas had spent most of the season on the practice squad, the ex–Rutgers quarterback completed three straight passes. Throwing short strikes after rollouts that exploited his mobility, Lucas guided his team to Detroit’s 19. But on third-and-4 from the 29, his pass into the end zone was intercepted by safety Ron Rice. On the last play of the third quarter, Barry Sanders finally showed his Houdini-esque moves, scampering 47 yards to New York’s 17. A few plays later, he dashed 15 yards for a touchdown that put Detroit ahead for the first time, 13–10. The Motor-City mob raised the decibel level so high that Parcells’s team struggled to hear its signals.

  Although O’Donnell reentered the game, Parcells didn’t hesitate to yank him on key possessions as Gang Green undertook a long drive to Detroit’s 9. With less than eight minutes left, O’Donnell stood on the sideline in frustration while on first-and-goal, Parcells called for a halfback option from Leon Johnson, a former high school quarterback who had attempted only one NFL pass. Johnson rolled far right to the edge of the sideline before unleashing a wounded-duck pass toward wideout Jeff Graham, double-teamed in the end zone. Cornerback Bryant Westbrook snagged the pigskin, juggling it before tumbling out of bounds. Although the grab was ruled an interception, TV replays confirmed that Westbrook had controlled the ball only after he struck the ground, a sequence that would factor into the NFL’s reinstitution of instant replay.

  Sanders secured Detroit’s three-point lead with a 53-yard run late, sending New England to the playoffs instead of Gang Green. He finished with 184 rushing yards for a season total of 2,053, becoming the third back to break the plateau, after O. J. Simpson and Eric Dickerson. Attempting a gimme field goal to force overtime, instead of a botched halfback option by a rookie, might have propelled the Jets to their first playoff appearance since 1991, but criticism of Parcells was muted. His risky decisions and derring-do, including early in the game, had led to a transformative season. Gang Green’s 9-7 record represented one of the sharpest turnarounds in league history. And Jets fans, experiencing their first winning season since 1988, were responding with record-breaking attendance.

  The eight additional victories had come despite the Jets dropping to sixteenth in personnel spending after having been tops in the NFL. Cornerback Aaron Glenn was the team’s only player voted to the Pro Bowl, but sharper execution and better discipline led Gang Green to drastically reduce turnovers (from 46 to 22) and penalties (110 to 83). Leon Hess, constantly thanked by New Yorkers when they spotted him in public, was no longer embarrassed by his franchise.

  Bill Parcells, however, craved more than respectability.

  20

  In mid-January 1998, Mike Tannenbaum and Bill Parcells met in the organization’s boardroom to assess the team’s roster needs and prioritize them. The most conspicuous hole was at starting quarterback. When free agency started about a month later, on Friday the thirteenth, Curtis Martin’s representative, Eugene Parker, phoned Tannenbaum to gauge interest in his client. Boy Wonder’s status as a restricted free agent allowed the Patriots to match any offer, and even if New England permitted its tailback to depart, the new club would have to relinquish first- and third-round draft picks. No free agent with such restrictions had ever switched teams, so Tannenbaum relayed news of Eugene Parker’s inquiry to Parcells in a dismissive manner. “I know we’re not interested in Curtis Martin, so—”

  Parcells interrupted. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? We’ve got to get this guy.”

  Tannenbaum was befuddled. “Well, wait a second. I thought running back was our eighth need.”

  Parcells respo
nded, “You don’t understand something. If our best player is our best person and our best worker, he’ll make everybody on the team better.” The exchange provided an important lesson to the aspiring GM: assembling a team involved both art and science. “That’s where Bill’s genius lay,” Tannenbaum says.

  For the next fifteen days, Mike Tannenbaum and Eugene Parker secretly worked toward a contract that would require creativity to prevent New England from matching it. Parker, an agent since 1984, had long expressed frustration that NFL contracts only included team options, which empowered clubs to nullify terms at a specified date. With Parcells’s blessing, Gang Green’s offer included a player option, permitting Martin to unilaterally void the long-term deal after the 1998 season and become an unrestricted free agent.

  Tannenbaum also inserted a provision barring the Patriots or Jets from using the franchise tag or transition tag on Martin in the 1998 off-season. Those designations allowed clubs to retain a valued free agent for one season by offering a non-negotiable high salary established by the league. The two key clauses in Gang Green’s offer, essentially poison pills, were unprecedented. And the six-year contract, potentially worth $36 million, was the richest in NFL history for a runner. If Martin exercised the player option to return after one season, he would trigger a five-year extension for $27.7 million in a deal with an average salary of $5.5 million. “Tons and tons and tons of money,” Tannenbaum says.

  The salary-cap whiz entered Parcells’s office to break down the numbers, and sitting across from his boss, he delivered some bad news: with $18 million guaranteed to Martin, the offer easily exceeded the club’s personnel budget. The Jets had recently made Kevin Mawae, twenty-seven, the NFL’s highest-paid center in their first major move of the off-season. Parcells envisioned the six-four, 300-pounder helping Gang Green to dominate the middle of the line. Mawae, a Seahawks free agent, commanded a five-year, $17 million contract that included a $5 million signing bonus.

  Referring to Martin’s deal, Tannenbaum told his boss, “We don’t have the money to do this.”

  Parcells responded, “Mr. T, we’ve got to get this guy, but this is a lot of money. What the heck are we going to do here?”

  Tannenbaum said, “I don’t know. Call Mr. Hess?”

  Parcells’s face tightened, but he reached for the phone to dial the oil magnate. Mr. T sat clinging to Parcells’s words while the Jets coach conveyed their predicament. Tannenbaum tried without success to read Hess’s decision until Parcells laughed hard before hanging up.

  Parcells, grinning, said, “Mr. T, Mr. Hess will have to sell more oil. Go get the guy!”

  The good news prompted Curtis Martin to sign Gang Green’s offer on March 20, 1998, but New England still had one week to decide on whether to match it. Within a few days Martin and his agent met the Jets’ head coach and Tannenbaum for dinner at Parcells’s regular eating spot on Long Island, B. K. Sweeney’s Uptown Grille. Parcells’s favorite waitress, Kelly Mandart, a vivacious and curvaceous twenty-eight-year-old, sat the quartet at a corner booth perennially reserved for him. During the meal, Martin sought Parcells’s advice on the long-shot possibility of New England matching the deal. Alluding to the clause permitting him to opt out of the contract in early 1998, Martin asked, “What would you do if you were me?”

  Tannenbaum perked up because it was the only scenario that Parcells hadn’t discussed with him. “Lookit, Curt,” Parcells replied. “I think you’d be a great fit here. But as much as I hate to say this, you’d have to exercise that option because it’s a lot of money. And you never know if that’s going to come around again.”

  “I love you, man.”

  “Don’t love me. Love the end zone.”

  The Patriots now faced a wrenching decision involving one of the league’s best young players, but matching the offer made little financial sense given Martin’s ability to become an unrestricted free agent after one season while negatively affecting New England’s salary cap. Robert Kraft protested the contract to no avail before deciding to accept Gang Green’s eighteenth and eighty-first overall picks. Despite approving the Jets’ offer, the NFL agreed with Kraft’s contention that they had ignored the spirit of the collective bargaining agreement by inserting poison pills. Going forward, the league barred similar inventiveness: the “Curtis Martin Rule” prohibits neutering of the franchise tag via an offer sheet.

  Given his team’s salary-cap issues, Parcells asked Neil O’Donnell to take a significant pay cut from his salary of $4 million. After the quarterback refused, Parcells released him in late June, and signed twelfth-year veteran Vinny Testaverde to a salary of only $1.5 million. The top overall pick in 1987 via the Miami Hurricanes, Testaverde had been inconsistent during his pro career, which included playing for Belichick’s Browns from 1993 to 1995, before the team moved to Baltimore. However, Testaverde was capable of making every type of throw, much like Drew Bledsoe, and at six-five and 235 pounds, he was both strapping and superbly conditioned. His bazooka arm produced spurts of brilliance, which he had sustained during a Pro Bowl season in 1996.

  While studying film of Testaverde before acquiring him, the Jets detected a major flaw: when his primary receiver was wallpapered, he too often ran around in the pocket before throwing an interception. That habit aside, Parcells believed the former Heisman Trophy winner was one of the game’s best pure passers. So after hiring his close friend Dan Henning as quarterbacks coach, Parcells banned Testaverde from throwing on the run. The Jets coaches instructed him instead to sprint for yardage when no one was open, or fling the ball out of bounds. They also planned to reduce the chances of a relapse by giving him extra protection.

  Parcells declared Glenn Foley the starting quarterback, but left open the possibility of Testaverde commandeering the job during training camp.

  Following the free-agency frenzy, Parcells drove to his winter home in Jupiter, Florida, for a respite in advance of the draft. He still had no idea that one of his scouts was seriously dating his middle daughter, but the romance had become an open secret at Jets headquarters. When Dallas discovered that Charlie Weis had been discussing the relationship, she grew alarmed because of his reputation for gossiping. “I was really concerned that Charlie knew,” Dallas says. She certainly didn’t want her dad to find out from someone else.

  Pioli suggested that she ease her mind by telling her father at the next opportunity. Dallas agreed and, after arranging a visit to her parents in Jupiter, found a quiet moment with her father. “I have something to tell you, Dad. I’ve been dating someone, and you know him.”

  Mystified, Parcells asked, “Well, who is it?”

  “I’m dating Scott Pioli. I just wanted to tell you because I really like him.” Dallas chuckled nervously, waiting for her father’s reaction.

  “Oh, okay. That’s fine. I’m glad you told me.”

  Parcells was surprised by the news but, to his daughter’s relief, quickly accepted the relationship because he liked Pioli. Dallas recalls, “I felt a little ridiculous. Here I am, a thirty-three-year-old woman, and I’m telling my dad I’ve got a boyfriend as if I’m twelve.”

  In early April, Parcells returned to Long Island in time for Pioli’s first day back from a scouting trip. Reluctant to broach the subject first, Pioli went about his business at Weeb Ewbank Hall, spending much of the day in Gang Green’s war room working on the draft board. When Parcells entered, Pioli braced himself. His boss wasted no time. “So, I hear we’re dating.”

  Pioli quipped, “Oh, we are? That’s news to me. But I do like you a lot, Bill.”

  The humor broke the awkwardness, and before long Parcells gave his blessing to wedding plans that would make Scott Pioli his son-in-law in 1999.

  Gang Green’s off-season after a historic turnaround further lifted expectations as the franchise headed into the thirtieth anniversary of its greatest triumph: Super Bowl III. The Jets announced their players would wear a tweaked version of the green-and-white uniform and logo from the bygone era: instea
d of the green helmet with “JETS” in white below an airplane wing, the franchise reintroduced a white helmet with “NY JETS” superimposed on a green oval.

  With the franchise flaunting a retro look, Parcells conducted another grueling training camp at Hofstra. Actor Al Pacino visited for two days to research his lead role as a pro football head coach in Any Given Sunday. Director Oliver Stone based the character on a composite that included Vince Lombardi and Bill Parcells. The film, set to open in late 1999, would feature an ensemble cast that included legendary NFL players Jim Brown and Lawrence Taylor with cameos from Dick Butkus, Emmitt Smith, Y. A. Tittle, and Johnny Unitas.

  In their introductory exchange at Weeb Ewbank Hall, Parcells couldn’t resist telling Pacino, “Just this one time, I’m going to let you ask about the family business.” Pacino grinned at Parcells’s twist on the actor’s famous line to Diane Keaton, who played his wife, Kay Corleone, in The Godfather. At Jets practices, Pacino unsuccessfully tried to stay inconspicuous, prowling the field in a light trench coat while scrutinizing Parcells’s interactions with players. Occasionally, the NFL’s version of the Godfather sidled up to his special guest to explain things. “He generally knew what was going on,” Parcells recalls of Pacino, “but I tried to give him some insight. He was a nice man. I enjoyed meeting him.”

  Glenn Foley performed well enough during the camp to remain the incumbent quarterback. Opening the season at San Francisco, he amassed a career-high 415 passing yards in a passing duel with Steve Young, but Gang Green lost in overtime, 36–30, when Garrison Hearst dashed 96 yards to score on his team’s longest-ever run from scrimmage. In New York’s next game, against the Ravens at Giants Stadium, Foley tossed three interceptions and hurt his ribs during a 24–10 loss.

  Foley’s injury put Testaverde in the starting lineup for a home game versus Indianapolis, quarterbacked by rookie Peyton Manning. The rifle-armed veteran threw four touchdowns in New York’s 44–6 rout of the Colts, ending his team’s early-season doldrums. Gang Green followed up with another sharp performance at home, defeating the Dolphins, 20–9, as Belichick’s defense intercepted Dan Marino twice.