Parcells remained worried until the moment he pulled his car into the driveway of Sexton’s hotel. Turning to his exasperated representative, Parcells said firmly, “All right, all right, Jimmy. Call them, and tell them all right.”
Within a week of their telephone introduction, Sean Payton and Bill Parcells boarded Jerry Jones’s private jet in New York. The sixth head coach in Cowboys history and his new quarterbacks guru sat together on the Dallas-bound flight discussing football for almost three hours. Parcells dominated the conversation, intermittently diagramming plays using a ballpoint pen and several napkins. Occasionally Sean Payton drew up some of his favorite designs, but mostly he soaked up Parcells’s preliminary lessons.
In Irving, Texas, the area’s obsession was illustrated by its street signs: Avenue of Champions, Touchdown Drive, Dorsett Drive, Meredith Drive, Staubach Drive. Although Tony Dorsett, Don Meredith, and Roger Staubach had been Cowboys stars, the streets were also dotted with names more likely to be recognizable only to passionate fans of the team. Outside Valley Ranch, the Cowboys headquarters in Irving, a topiary took the star shape of the team’s logo.
During an introductory press conference there on January 2, 2003, Jerry Jones described Parcells as the “most qualified coach in our sport that you could draw up if you were drawing your own Rembrandt.” Parcells wore a dark-gray suit, white shirt, and tie striped with Cowboys silver and blue. The two men of the hour expressed optimism about their partnership and the franchise’s future, but Sports Illustrated captured the skepticism of people who knew both bigwigs well. “Are You Kidding Me?” asked the magazine in a headline the following week.
Just as Parcells was starting this new, intriguing chapter in his football life, he lost yet another close friend. Late Thursday, January 9, Will McDonough died of a heart attack at his home in Hingham, Massachusetts, while watching ESPN. Despite McDonough’s history of heart trouble, which had included a mild attack in December, his death rocked Parcells. The Boston Globe columnist had recently passed the same stress tests that Parcells once took before heart surgery, clearing the sportswriter to maintain his record of covering every Super Bowl. With Parcells’s handful of close friends dwindling, the sixty-one-year-old coach needed football more than ever.
Parcells and Mandart moved into an apartment building in the suburb of Las Colinas, a few miles from Valley Ranch. Entering his new team’s headquarters, Parcells snaked through corridors filled with pictures of Cowboys greats and reminders of the franchise’s glorious past. One navy-and-white sign read, “World Champions: 1971, 1977, 1992, 1993, 1995.” Parcells’s new office was the same one where Tom Landry had last hung his fedora. The upgraded furniture included cherry-paneled walls, a leather couch, and a metal desk that held a framed photograph of Landry and Parcells snapped in the mid-1980s. The opposing head coaches are talking near midfield at Texas Stadium, minutes before their Giants and Cowboys battled.
Parcells had formally met Landry in the early 1980s following an introduction from Wellington Mara. One of the most innovative coaches in NFL history, Landry was at the tail end of his league-record twenty consecutive winning seasons, a stretch from 1966 to 1985, with capstones of Super Bowl VI and XII.
Whenever Parcells saw Landry during pregame warm-ups, the young head coach solicited whatever information he could get. How many days per week did the Cowboys practice in pads? How physical were their Friday sessions? Despite the Giants being archrivals, Landry educated Parcells, and Big Blue’s leader, seventeen years younger than his counterpart, cherished every tidbit. Parcells says of Landry, “The most genuine, forthright, caring guy, and very straightforward with me.”
While Parcells’s stature rose toward the late 1980s, highlighted by a Super Bowl ring in 1987, Landry’s Cowboys stumbled. On November 6, 1988, Dallas brought a five-game skid to the Meadowlands while the Giants were aiming for their fourth straight victory. Nonetheless, Parcells viewed the only head coach in Cowboys history as a football god. Both men maintained their pregame ritual of chatting, and Landry ended the conversation by praising his counterpart for revitalizing Big Blue. Parcells says, “You know what that means to a guy like me?”
That meaningful exchange would be their last one on the gridiron. Dallas lost, 29–21, en route to the league’s worst record at 3-13, and a few months later an oil magnate named Jerry Jones purchased the franchise and shocked the nation by firing Landry that same day.
Parcells’s new Cowboys office already contained three family photographs: his daughters in their preteen years wearing dresses and pigtails; his grandson Kyle and granddaughter Kendall. Glued to the cabinet was a brass plate from Al Groh that repeated the succinct advice Parcells had given him as a rookie NFL head coach in 2000, guidance that originally came from Al Davis during Parcells’s tumultuous 1983 season.
“Just Coach the Team.”
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were waiting on a claim filed with the league office seeking draft picks from the Cowboys because Parcells had agreed to join Tampa Bay in early 2002. Paul Tagliabue ruled against the Bucs, however, saving Parcells from needing a second straight employer to relinquish compensatory picks for his services. Now his immediate concern was to assemble a strong staff, despite a pool largely devoid of his disciples. One exception was the only person to have ever both played and coached for him: Maurice Carthon, coming off his first season as Detroit’s offensive coordinator. Parcells persuaded Carthon to join him in Dallas by offering him the same plum position.
The first time the pair entered Valley Ranch together, early one morning, Carthon shook his head after a few steps, turning to Parcells. “Bill, can you believe we’re coaching the Dallas Cowboys?” Their laughter echoed through the hallway.
After due diligence, Parcells kept on Mike Zimmer as Cowboys defensive coordinator, notwithstanding the forty-six-year-old’s inexperience with the 3-4 scheme. Zimmer had fielded solid defenses amid Dallas’s recent struggles. Parcells still wanted some familiar faces, however, so he targeted his Jets wideouts coach, Todd Haley, who had joined the Bears in 2001, and in the next season helped Marty Booker become the franchise’s first Pro Bowl wideout since 1971. The Bears, though, declined to release their promising coach from his contract, which had one more season left on it.
Three days before Parcells’s introductory conference, the Jacksonville Jaguars had fired Tom Coughlin, the only head coach and GM in its eight-year existence. He turned down Parcells’s offer to reunite them in Dallas, having decided to sit out at least one year before pursuing head-coaching opportunities. But Coughlin recommended Tony Sparano, describing the forty-one-year-old as one of the best assistants he’d ever had. Such effusive praise from Parcells’s even-keeled alter ego convinced him to hire Sparano as Dallas’s tight ends coach.
Parcells decided to keep several of his predecessor’s defensive assistants, including linebackers coach Gary Gibbs, the former head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. Parcells also hired the two young coaches he had planned to bring to Kentucky when mulling that job: Mike MacIntyre and David Lee. When MacIntyre stepped into Parcells’s office to learn that he had beaten out several candidates for the job of overseeing Dallas’s defensive backs, Parcells told him, “Mike, I’m hiring you. Work your butt off. Don’t worry about me patting you on the back, or saying anything to you. If you do a good job, I’ll promote you and keep you. If not, I’ll fire you.”
MacIntyre’s heart raced with nervousness and excitement. “Yes, sir.”
Shortly thereafter, David Lee sat in the same chair to discuss being a quality-control coach for offense and assisting Sean Payton with quarterbacks. Despite more than two decades of pleasant conversations, Lee’s new boss skipped the small talk.
“Here’s your contract, here’s your salary, and here’s a pen. Sign it.”
As Lee picked up the pen, Parcells eased up a bit. “Actually, go ahead and read it over.”
Lee signed anyway. “No. I don’t need to read it over. I trust you.” The rookie NFL coach rose
and shook Parcells’s hand. “Coach, I’m going to bust my butt for you.”
“David, that might not be good enough. This business is all about production.”
Lee nodded, turned around, and left the room. Heading down the hall, he thought to himself, “This is a different deal. This isn’t the same relationship. Things have changed.”
During the first staff meeting to detail plans for 2003, Parcells warned the group, “I like confrontation; it clears the air. I don’t want or need coaches who are the player’s best friends. I want coaches who are demanding, who can make the player better and take him where he can’t go by himself.”
The remarks captivated Sean Payton as he took careful notes. Dallas’s new quarterbacks coach had never heard anyone articulate the benefits of confrontation before. Since entering the profession at San Diego State in 1988, nine years before his first NFL gig in Philadelphia, Payton had generally avoided brutal honesty with players.
Only a few days into the job, Parcells confronted a major problem involving quarterback Quincy Carter, who had started seven games for Dallas the previous season: the twenty-six-year-old was about to enter a drug treatment clinic in the Boston area. The NFL had reportedly placed Carter in its substance-abuse program because his urine tested positive for marijuana, triggering multiple unannounced tests each week. His agent, Eugene Parker, knowing Parcells well, instructed Carter to discuss the issue with Dallas’s new leader or risk dismissal from the team, so the quarterback visited Parcells’s office at Valley Ranch for a frank conversation.
Quincy Carter told Parcells, “You know, I’ve got this little problem, which is why I’m going to go away to rehab.”
Parcells replied, “You go ahead. But I’m not having drugs on my team. So when you come back, you’d better be attending after-care and all that, because if you don’t follow through, forget about playing on this team. I can lose games without your ass.”
Since confronting the Giants’ drug problems in 1984, Parcells had given players like Carter an opportunity to rehabilitate with his club’s support, but he would only tolerate a slim margin for error. Recalling the advice from the addiction expert who had educated him, Parcells says, “I can’t be nice to these guys. I’m not trying to be a smart-ass. Jane Jones told me to bust their balls. It’s etched in my mind.”
Parcells adds, “Jerry was the greatest enabler there was. He said he was going to help Carter and test the player himself. Jerry didn’t know shit about that.”
After quarterback Troy Aikman’s retirement following the 2000 season, the Cowboys had sought a replacement, so in 2001 Jerry Jones drafted Carter in the second round, fifty-third overall, via Georgia. Before his standout college football career, which included becoming a starter during his freshman season, the fleet six-two, 220-pounder had struggled in minor-league baseball, playing outfield for a Chicago Cubs affiliate. As an NFL rookie with the Cowboys, Carter became the first black quarterback to be named a starter. Injuries, however, limited Carter to eight games. He returned as starter in 2002, but after going 3-4 he lost the job to another ex–baseball player: Chad Hutchinson, who had entered Stanford in 1995 as an elite pitcher and quarterback. Hutchinson had spent four seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals organization.
Like Tom Coughlin in his inaugural year under Parcells, Sean Payton quickly discovered his boss’s distaste for scripted plays. During one of Parcells’s first minicamp practices he lambasted his offensive coaches for being preoccupied with their scripts instead of teaching important details to their players. Parcells commanded an equipment guy to collect the sheets from his staff; setting them aside, Parcells barked, “Okay, now call the goddamn plays against the defense.”
Forced to watch the action more closely, the offensive coaches became better attuned to nuances and passed them on to the players. In sum, Parcells’s diktat led to improved instruction. He continued to acculturate, or deprogram, his new coaches, especially Sean Payton. During the first few weeks of spring practices, the offense worked on specific runs and passes. When coaches inserted new wrinkles every day the execution lagged, so Parcells laminated the playlist and banned any additions. The decision frustrated Payton, who relished experimenting from a comprehensive playbook, but the offense soon responded with sharper execution. For the first time in his football life, Payton saw the benefits of a streamlined offense.
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Jerry Jones once heard Bill Walsh opine on TV that the Cowboys owner and Jimmy Johnson had grown careless in managing their relationship. Deeming Walsh’s assessment correct, Jones intended to avoid making the same mistake with Parcells. So in early 2003, the owner assigned his son Stephen and PR chief Rich Dalrymple to the task of enhancing communication and maintaining harmony. At a meeting Jerry Jones told the two men, “I want you guys to help us work out this relationship. Always let me know where I might be going a little bit over the line, and let Bill know where he might be doing the same.”
When informed of the arrangement, Bill Parcells considered it a smart idea.
Since joining the organization in 1995, Dalrymple had seen how relationships could deteriorate between management and coaches because of miscommunication or perceived slights. Stephen Jones, who held the franchise’s second-highest title as executive vice president, understood his father’s idiosyncrasies as well as anyone; Stephen had demonstrated a knack for defusing combustible situations in the Cowboys organization.
Jerry and Bill were also working hard to be sensitive to each other’s feelings. Unlike in previous years, the owner kept his head coach in the loop on every consequential development related to the franchise. Their candid yet respectful discussions helped Stephen Jones and Rich Dalrymple in their role as intermediaries. The primary potential for trouble between the larger-than-life figures involved personnel decisions. This made Larry Lacewell—Jones’s top scout, consigliere, and longtime pal—a key figure in the partnership.
After spending four decades in college football, mostly as a defensive coach, Lacewell had joined the Cowboys in 1992 for his close friend Jimmy Johnson’s fourth season. As director of college and pro scouting, Lacewell oversaw the franchise’s drafts. His first coaching job had come in 1959 at Alabama as a graduate assistant for Bear Bryant, who’d been a high school teammate of his father’s in Fordyce, Arkansas. In Arkansas, Lacewell met Jerry Jones, a star tailback at North Little Rock High, leading to a long friendship.
Over several years Lacewell jumped from school to school while moving up the coaching ladder. Named Wichita defensive coordinator in 1967, he hired Jimmy Johnson two years after a neophyte coach, Bill Parcells, had overseen his alma mater’s linebackers. Lacewell helped Johnson land jobs at multiple schools as the pair grew close enough for Johnson to be best man at Lacewell’s wedding.
In 1970, Lacewell became Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator under Chuck Fairbanks, and again brought Johnson along. When Fairbanks left for the Patriots three years later, Barry Switzer took over, and Oklahoma captured national championships in 1974 and 1975. Lacewell’s only stint as a head coach occurred at Arkansas State from 1979 to 1989, a stretch in which he set the school’s all-time mark for victories.
Mulling retirement after the 2002 Cowboys season, Lacewell sold his Dallas home and purchased property in Hot Springs, Arkansas. However, the prospect of working with Bill Parcells excited Dallas’s chief scout, so he decided to stay put for the anticipated turnaround. Lacewell advised Jones, “Give Bill anything he wants. Period. If I’m part of the problem, get rid of me. Don’t let you be the excuse for him quitting.”
In their first major roster move, Jerry and Bill agreed to release tailback Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, who had played all thirteen seasons of his pro career in Dallas. Despite Smith’s insistence on remaining a starter, his productivity had declined for three straight seasons, including the previous one, when he’d amassed 975 rushing yards while averaging 3.8 yards. The February 27, 2003, transaction provided Dallas with substantially more spen
ding money for free agency, set to commence the next day. Shortly thereafter Emmitt Smith would ink a two-year contract with the Arizona Cardinals.
Smith, thirty-three, represented the franchise’s final link to future Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin; together the “Triplets” had helped Dallas capture three Lombardi Trophies during the 1990s. The media speculated that Parcells had been behind the move, but the first time the new head coach and his boss had gone over the roster, Jones said, “You don’t need to worry about Emmitt. I’ll take care of that. We need to be moving on.” Darren Woodson, a five-time Pro Bowler and the league’s most versatile safety, remained the only player on the roster tied to Jimmy Johnson’s Cowboys.
The top candidate on the Cowboys to replace Smith had been signed in 2000 as an undrafted player out of Savannah State: Troy Hambrick doubled as a fullback. He showed promise as Smith’s backup but was better known for special-teams contributions. As always, Parcells added former players to his new team. He acquired Terry Glenn from the Packers by relinquishing only a sixth-round pick.
New England’s decision to jettison Glenn came after a four-year stretch of inconsistency, personal difficulties, and disputes with Bill Belichick, culminating in a postseason suspension while the Patriots went on to capture Super Bowl XXXVI. But Glenn had won Parcells over in New England with his brilliant rookie season, and the start of Glenn’s troubles coincided with Parcells departing the Patriots. So they both saw a reunion as mutually beneficial. Parcells also signed Jets fullback Richie Anderson to a multiyear contract by outbidding New England.
Jeff Ireland, an up-and-coming scout in the organization, generally acted as the point man on personnel acquisitions. After identifying a need, Ireland approached Parcells to discuss it, and vice versa. Typically Ireland then relayed any request to Stephen Jones before it reached Jerry. Then, in keeping with his resolve to constantly communicate, the owner sometimes walked into Parcells’s office to discuss the matter. Occasionally Jones came up with his own personnel ideas, which he ran by the scouts and coaches, especially Parcells.
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