Parcells

by Bill Parcells

  Parcells found the notion distasteful given his acrimonious divorce from Kraft; the two essentially hadn’t spoken since the week following the 1997 Super Bowl. Nonetheless, Parcells knew a deal would benefit both sides, and he believed that, as a savvy businessman, Kraft would embrace the opportunity to bolster his franchise. Furthermore, talks would signal a truce in what Parcells termed the “border war” between New England and New York.

  So that same day Parcells telephoned Kraft’s office and identified himself to the owner’s secretary. Surprised by the call after years of smoldering silence, Kraft gave the go-ahead to pipe him in. When the owner picked up, Parcells said, “Hello, Bob, this is Darth Vader.”

  Kraft laughed, easing some of the tension.

  When his nemesis broached the possibility of a resolution involving Belichick, the Patriots overlord was immediately receptive. Before going further, however, Parcells expressed regret for some of his actions in New England. Kraft responded by conceding that his inexperience as an NFL owner had exacerbated the situation.

  Getting down to business, Parcells informed Kraft that the Jets would allow Belichick to coach New England in exchange for compensation via draft picks. Kraft offered a third-round pick in 2000 and a fourth-rounder in 2001. Parcells quickly countered that a deal required at least a first-round selection in 2000. The conciliatory conversation ended after forty minutes, with plans for further talks in the morning.

  In their next session, Kraft increased his offer to a second-round pick in 2000 and a third-rounder in 2001, but Parcells insisted on a first-round selection. The two men hung up politely without a deal. Later that afternoon, Kraft interviewed Jaguars defensive coordinator Dom Capers for more than four hours. Parcells expected New England to hire Tom Coughlin’s lieutenant as their new head coach, leaving Belichick in limbo and Gang Green without compensation for his departure. However, as Parcells headed to bed around 11 p.m., Kraft surprised him with a phone call.

  “I’m going to make a decision here that I don’t want to make, because I want this guy as my head coach.”

  Parcells replied, “We can work this out. Let’s do it.”

  Kraft agreed to relinquish his upcoming first-round pick if the teams exchanged a couple of lower-round selections in future years. Sealing the deal, the Jets chief made an unusual suggestion: that they place a two-day window on Belichick’s contract negotiations with New England in order to prevent him from holding either organization hostage. Kraft loved the idea.

  Knowing about the earlier stalemate, Belichick was flabbergasted when Parcells called him at 7 a.m. to reveal the agreement he’d reached with Bob Kraft, contingent on Belichick’s signing a contract with the Patriots in less than forty-eight hours. Parcells also granted Belichick permission to hire two Jets staffers with whom he shared links to the Cleveland Browns: Eric Mangini and Scott Pioli. After all but firing Weis, Parcells gladly allowed the banished coach to join Belichick, too. Jets PR assistant Berj Najarian, who had grown close to Belichick at Weeb Ewbank Hall by perennially staying there late, was also on his wish list, to which Parcells also gave his approval.

  Around 10 a.m., Kraft called Bill Belichick to confirm the arrangement and start negotiating a contract. After hanging up, Belichick telephoned Mangini, Pioli, and Najarian about heading to New England. Within a few hours Belichick drove the three men to Foxboro Stadium, where he reached a handshake agreement with Kraft on a contract to be finalized later.

  At 6 p.m. that same day the Patriots introduced Bill Belichick as their new head coach, with more power over personnel decisions than Kraft, as a neophyte owner, had permitted Parcells. Belichick took the opportunity to reiterate that he had quit the Jets mainly because of the franchise’s fluid ownership at the time, and Parcells’s unclear role. Addressing the issue of escaping his mentor’s shadow, Belichick noted that Parcells had also left a vast one in New England.

  Parcells says of Belichick, “At the end of the day, he didn’t want to be the Jets head coach. Then he expected me as the general manager of the organization to just say, ‘Okay, I’ll get somebody else.’ Well, eventually, I did that. But I got compensation because I knew what Kraft was doing before the season ended. I didn’t begrudge Bill getting another job somewhere else. In fact, I’m probably the one that got it for him.”

  Reflecting on his decision to quit the Jets, Bill Belichick says, “At that point in time, in that situation, I did what I felt I needed to do, and I don’t have any regrets about that. Certainly a lot of things could have been handled differently.”

  Beyond losing Belichick, Gang Green faced a dilemma involving one of its top players: Keyshawn Johnson was expected to hold out during training camp if the Jets failed to upgrade his rookie contract, which had two years remaining on it. The six-year, $15.4 million deal, which had been reached after a holdout lasting almost a month, included the largest bonus for a rookie receiver: $6.5 million. However, after two consecutive Pro Bowl seasons, the loquacious wideout felt underpaid by the $2.4 million due in 2000, when lesser receivers were earning substantially bigger salaries.

  During the previous off-season Parcells had tried to restructure Johnson’s deal in a way that would both avoid the salary-cap consequences of an extension and keep the wideout long-term. The NFL, however, ruled that the unusual proposal was in violation of cap rules. Gang Green suspected that the decision involved fallout from Curtis Martin’s controversial contract. To further complicate matters, Jets policy prohibited renegotiating deals with at least two years left on them, and Parcells disliked the scorched-earth tactics of Johnson’s Los Angeles–based agent, Jerome Stanley, who demanded a new deal that included a $12 million bonus.

  Parcells met with Al Groh, Dick Haley, and Mike Tannenbaum to weigh the team’s options: force Johnson to stay, despite the disruption of another holdout; trade him to the highest bidder; or grant him a lucrative extension, setting a precedent that would hamper Gang Green’s efforts to retain key players. Eager to start his tenure without distractions, Al Groh favored jettisoning the wideout, so Parcells consulted Keyshawn Johnson about reaching a mutually beneficial decision. In Parcells’s office they spoke about the possibility of finding a team willing to meet Johnson’s contractual demands.

  Johnson noticed a thick binder on Parcells’s desk used for organizing his personal and financial life. After the football talk, he asked Parcells if he could take a closer look. The Jets chief obliged, and explained its purpose as Johnson leafed through the binder, which included a wide range of sections: property tax estimates, book deals, endorsement contracts, horse racing, income statements, correspondence, donations, investments. When Parcells suggested that Johnson get something similar to help organize his own life, the wideout latched on to the idea, and responded with deep appreciation. The heartfelt exchange put an unusual coda on their strategy session for navigating the cutthroat business of football.

  “Keyshawn can be full of shit, but he’s a good listener,” Parcells says. “When you’re talking about something serious, he’s paying attention.”

  On April 12, the Jets made one of the most stunning trades in franchise history, sending their star wideout to Tampa Bay, an offensively challenged team with Super Bowl expectations based on a dominant defense, for two first-round picks in the upcoming draft. The Buccaneers agreed to extend Johnson’s contract by six years and $52 million, including a team-record $13 million bonus that made him the highest-paid wideout of all time. Despite losing a major offensive weapon, Gang Green ended up with an NFL record four first-round choices, including the one acquired for Belichick’s services.

  The Jets used those selections to draft defensive lineman Shaun Ellis (twelfth overall) of Tennessee, defensive end John Abraham (thirteenth) of South Carolina, quarterback Chad Pennington (eighteenth) of Marshall, and tight end Anthony Becht (twenty-seventh) of West Virginia. Gang Green’s next selection didn’t come until the third round, when the team was considering drafting Florida State wideout Laveranues Coles, wh
ose stock had dropped because of a rap sheet. As a college senior, Coles was arrested with fellow wideout Peter Warrick for shoplifting at Dillard’s, prompting the Seminoles to remove him from the team. A prior incident in 1998 had brought Coles a simple battery charge, triggering a one-game suspension. Nonetheless, Steve Yarnell advocated for Coles because the security chief’s background check, which included a visit to Tallahassee, found extenuating circumstances in the wideout’s troubles. With Coles still available for Gang Green’s seventy-eighth overall choice, Parcells tersely asked Yarnell in the draft room whether the wideout would end up embarrassing the organization.

  Yarnell pushed back. “I’m telling you, this is our guy!” The security chief’s conviction helped sway Gang Green to pick Coles. Its 2000 draft class would bolster the roster for years, and the talented five-eleven, 200-pounder performed well while behaving like a model citizen.

  Despite the tumultuous off-season, Al Groh’s Jets captured their first four games with Vinny Testaverde back at quarterback. The first such streak in franchise history included two stirring comebacks: 20–19 at home versus Bill Belichick’s Patriots on two final-period touchdowns by Wayne Chrebet, and 21–17 on the road against Tony Dungy’s Buccaneers, after Boy Wonder threw the game winner to Chrebet while Keyshawn Johnson finished with just one catch for a yard.

  Instead of attending games in his new role, Bill Parcells drove from his home in Seagirt, New Jersey, to Weeb Ewbank Hall, where he watched Gang Green on TV. The decision stemmed from Parcells’s desire to keep from overshadowing his rookie NFL head coach, especially on game days. At most Parcells might telephone Mike Tannenbaum to chat before a contest while navigating the Jersey Turnpike past Giants Stadium, heading for Long Island. Mr. T’s game-day responsibilities placed him in the Jets coaches’ booth.

  Less than two hours before Gang Green hosted the Dolphins on Monday Night Football, Parcells telephoned from the highway. “All right, Mr. T, what’s going on?”

  Tannenbaum replied, “Nothing much; usual pregame stuff. Are you coming?”

  “Hmmm. No.”

  With the Jets playing Miami for first place in the AFC East, Parcells’s superstitious nature reinforced his decision to stay on the periphery. Gang Green improved to 6-1 after the “Monday Night Miracle,” the greatest comeback in franchise history and on the prime-time series. Down 30–7 in the fourth quarter, Gang Green tied the game with 1:20 left on Testaverde’s 3-yard pass to left tackle Jumbo Elliott, who made a juggling catch while falling in the end zone. The improbable reception, the only touchdown of Elliott’s career and Testaverde’s fifth of the night, led to overtime. The Jets triumphed, 40–37, in a stadium that ended up being half empty mainly due to the departure of fans who had given up hope.

  Groh’s team, however, failed to sustain the magic, subsequently losing three straight. The slide tortured Parcells, given his vow not to micromanage. Although the Jets chief had observed some reasons for Gang Green’s troubles, he felt that steering Groh would undermine him. However, Parcells was spending more time than ever discussing how to build a team with Mike Tannenbaum, who ended up receiving his boss’s private complaints about Groh’s decisions.

  Perplexed by the information, Tannenbaum asked, “Bill, why don’t you tell Al instead of me? He’s the one who needs to make the changes you’re talking about.”

  Parcells replied, “Mr. T, I just can’t tell Al. He has to do things in his own way.”

  Tannenbaum says now, “Bill never really found his stride being the GM because he didn’t want to overstep his bounds.”

  The director of football operations still found ways to motivate his favorite Jet, Boy Wonder. During one conversation after the sixth-year veteran described his rigorous training regimen that dated back to his rookie season, Parcells replied, “Son, don’t confuse routine with commitment, because you’ve got to do more the older you get, or you’re losing ground. A lot of people fall into a routine in their life’s work, and as time goes on they eventually confuse that with being committed to their job. The only thing they’re committed to is the routine.”

  Martin suddenly realized that his workouts had fallen into a rut. Despite a reputation for being Gang Green’s hardest worker, Boy Wonder decided to revamp his routine. He recalls of Parcells’s advice, “That sparked a new flame, a higher flame.”

  A three-game winning streak boosted Gang Green to 9-4, positioning the club to make the playoffs with just one more victory. Nevertheless, Groh’s team collapsed again, losing three straight down the stretch.

  On December 30, only one week after the season finale, Al Groh abruptly quit the Jets to accept his dream job: head coach at his alma mater, the University of Virginia, where his son Mike had starred as a quarterback in the mid-1990s. Al Groh, who had been an assistant coach at the school in the early 1970s, signed a seven-year contract worth more than $5 million in a deal that provided more long-term security than he had with the Jets. Reminiscent of Ray Perkins bolting the Giants for Alabama, Groh replaced George Welsh, sixty-seven, who had retired after nineteen seasons at Virginia.

  The third Jets head coach to bail in a calendar year guaranteed that the franchise would experience another disruptive off-season, and only ten days later, on January 9, an even more powerful tremor shook the team. Bill Parcells announced his retirement from the NFL, citing reasons similar to those he’d given when he had quit as head coach, and admitting that he had experienced difficulty transitioning to his new role. As a replacement Parcells recommended that Woody Johnson decide among three of Parcells’s former Giants scouts: personnel executives Terry Bradway of the Chiefs, Jerry Angelo of the Bucs, and Rick Donohue of the Giants. Interviewing them only two days after Parcells’s resignation, Woody Johnson chose Bradway, a Giants scout from 1986 to 1992. The owner kept Mike Tannenbaum on, positioning the contract negotiator to be next in line to run the team.

  On Parcells’s final day at Weeb Ewbank Hall, he secretly placed a bottle of Grey Goose on Mr. T’s desk with a note: “At some point, you’re going to need this.”

  23

  Retirement in early 2001 made Bill Parcells a serious Hall of Fame candidate for the first time. Although players were required to wait five years after retirement in order to be eligible, former coaches could qualify for induction after only one year away from the sidelines. Each Super Bowl Eve, wherever the game was being played, the Hall’s board of selectors met to consider fifteen modern-era candidates before whittling them to no more than five finalists, who would then need 80 percent approval for induction. The panel also considered two so-called senior candidates for enshrinement; they had to be at least a quarter century removed from their final season.

  A few days before the selection process began on Saturday, January 27, 2001, in Tampa Bay, a newspaper story speculated that Parcells would return to the NFL as Tampa Bay’s head coach. Despite the team’s transformation under Tony Dungy, the ownership family saw the franchise as underachieving, particularly in the playoffs. The article resonated with the Hall of Fame’s thirty-eight voters, most of whom believed that Parcells, at age fifty-nine, was likely to coach in the NFL again. The possibility was anathema to the board, which mainly worried that an enshrined member might stain his legacy with an unsuccessful return to the sidelines. So Will McDonough, perhaps the most influential voter on the board of selectors, telephoned Parcells.

  “Look, Bill. You’re my close friend. You have to give me your word that you’re absolutely not going to come back to the game, because I’ll be sticking my neck way out when I go to bat for you.”

  After several less than definitive remarks, Parcells finally told McDonough, “Will, as a friend I can’t make that promise to you. Right now, I’m retired. That’s all I can say.”

  Later that night, McDonough called their mutual buddy, Joe O’Donnell, to express his frustration. “I think he’s staying retired, but I’m not sure. Talking to Bill about this was like sumo wrestling. He moved to the right; he moved to the left. I could
n’t get him to commit to staying retired.”

  Given the ambiguity about his future, Bill Parcells failed to make it out of the first round of the three-stage selection process. The class of 2001 consisted of linebacker Nick Buoniconti (the senior candidate), coach Marv Levy, offensive guard Mike Munchak, offensive tackle Jackie Slater, wideout Lynn Swann, offensive tackle Ron Yary, and defensive end Jack Youngblood. Levy’s selection over Parcells underscored the committee’s thinking on the former Jets boss. Levy had led Buffalo to a record four straight Super Bowls, but had never triumphed; Parcells had captured two Lombardi Trophies, including one against Levy’s Bills, and he led New England to a Super Bowl appearance before guiding Gang Green to the AFC Championship. No NFL coach had taken three different franchises, struggling before his arrival, to such heights.

  Still, it would have been unusual if Parcells had been selected on the first try. George Halas and Curly Lambeau were members of the Hall’s 1963 inaugural class; since then only three coaches had gained entry in their first year of eligibility: Tom Landry (1990), Chuck Noll (1993), and Don Shula (1997). Hall voters had forced Bill Walsh (1993) to wait four seasons before induction, and Joe Gibbs (1996) three, because of concerns that they would return to the sidelines. Now their rival Bill Parcells would wait at least a year.

  Even in retirement, Parcells still needed the NFL in some form. Instead of going cold turkey, he returned to the broadcast booth. The former NBC expert took on a guest role with ESPN as a studio analyst during the football season. As a head coach, Parcells had gained renown for turning his press conferences into must-see TV. He flashed intelligence, humor, and belligerence while sometimes making reporters cower the same way his players did. Despite often showing a disdain for the media that would have pleased Woody Hayes, Parcells relished the give-and-take. He established friendly, symbiotic relationships with select reporters, although no one penetrated his circle quite like Will McDonough had done.