The showdown marked Parcells’s first trip to Gillette Stadium, which had replaced Foxboro Stadium in 2002, providing the cornucopia of luxury suites and club seats lacking in New England’s old building. Accommodating a crowd of 68,436, the Patriots had maintained a home sellout streak dating to 1994, Parcells’s second season with the franchise.
During warm-ups for the 8:30 p.m. kickoff, Big Bill and Little Bill stood on their sidelines directly opposite each other. Wearing a blue Cowboys windbreaker on the cloudy, chilly night, Parcells looked across the field, seemingly trying to catch Belichick’s eye, but Little Bill, in his familiar gray hoodie, appeared to be preoccupied with observing his players. After a minute or so Big Bill gave up, turning away to also focus on pregame details. Parcells’s actions were similar to those preceding other contests, but given the story line, the media seized on the moment. Regardless, the scene marked a sharp contrast with the three times Belichick’s Browns had faced Parcells’s Patriots during the 1990s, when the two head coaches had greeted each other with hugs—chatting, smiling, and laughing.
The 2003 Tuna Bowl saw both offenses struggle, with the deciding factor being Quincy Carter’s three interceptions, two picked off by cornerback Ty Law. As New England led, 12–0, in the game’s waning moments, the only drama left involved the customary postgame handshake. Broadcasting the contest live, ESPN mentioned the pregame lack of contact between Belichick and Parcells. The network’s sideline reporter, Suzy Kolber, told viewers, “Well, we have to wonder what happens in the postgame. Do they acknowledge each other? I don’t think there’s ever been this much intrigue regarding a handshake in the postgame.”
After Parcells was handed only the third shutout of his career, photographers and cameramen surrounded the head coaches as they walked toward each other at midfield. Instead of a routine handshake, though, Parcells embraced Belichick, who returned the gesture. As cameras flashed and films rolled, Parcells whispered into Belichick’s right ear, congratulating him on the victory. Little Bill complimented Big Bill about reviving the Cowboys, and wished him luck. Following the brief exchange, Belichick trotted to the stadium’s tunnel while Parcells remained on the field, greeting linebacker Willie McGinest and some of his ex–Patriots players. Despite the prime-time hug, however, the relationship would remain strained for the foreseeable future.
Living in Texas allowed Bill Parcells to rekindle a relationship with Gordon Wood, the legendary high school coach whose indefatigability at age sixty-two had left an indelible mark on the then Texas Tech defensive coordinator. Parcells had discovered that long-term success in the profession required devotion that went well beyond human nature. While becoming a household name in football, Parcells had strived to emulate the Texas icon who had traveled several hours daily just to scrutinize the Red Raiders’ defense for ideas. Now, as the Cowboys taskmaster at age sixty-two, his legacy secured, Parcells in many ways had grown into a mirror image of the coach he had first met in Lubbock. At eighty-nine, Gordon Wood maintained his football passion despite having endured a stroke, skin tumors, a hip replacement, and triple-bypass surgery. Eighteen years into retirement, he remained active in the profession, traveling the country to give speeches to spellbound coaches.
In late November, Wood asked Parcells to join him for a high school playoff game at Texas Stadium involving the Brownwood Lions, the team he had transformed into a dynasty before stepping down at age seventy-one. Parcells agreed despite the inconvenience of rushing from Valley Ranch on Thursday night after a staff meeting and driving to the arena. As Parcells and Wood walked to their press-box seats, spectators greeted the men with equal reverence: “Coach” or—to differentiate—“Coach Wood” and “Coach Parcells.”
Their conversation inevitably turned to football strategy, with Wood providing details of the run-oriented Wing T formation that had helped him become the winningest coach in the history of high school football. Parcells asked Wood, “What are your best trick plays?” Known for his innovations and gimmicks while going 396-91-15, Wood spent the next several minutes giving examples.
Parcells now recalls, “He was the same kind of guy as Mickey,” referring to Mickey Corcoran.
It would be the last time that the two football lifers got together. A few weeks later, on December 17, Gordon Wood died of a heart attack.
Deep into the season, a genuine friendship was forming between Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells. During one visit to Jones’s home in Highland Park, a wealthy enclave of Dallas, Parcells spotted the Vince Lombardi Trophies from 1993, 1994, and 1996. The sight of them confounded Parcells, who had often spotted the franchise’s crown jewels in Jones’s office at Valley Ranch. Parcells asked the owner, “Where did you get those trophies?”
Jones replied, “I had ’em made.”
“There’s a patent on that trophy. You can’t just have it made.”
“Well, I did. Don’t you have one of yours?”
“No.”
Parcells had resigned himself to owning eighteen-inch versions of his Super Bowl XXI and XXV trophies, and bought the miniature knockoffs for his players and staff. Each team that captured the Lombardi Trophy was allowed to purchase an extra one, which required seventy-two hours of labor supplied by Tiffany & Co. in Parsippany, New Jersey. Being friends with one of the trophy makers, Jones turned to his connection, and at Christmas the owner surprised his head coach with full-sized replicas of Big Blue’s trophies. Handcrafted in sterling silver, they each weighed seven pounds and stood twenty-two inches.
Recalling the gesture, Parcells says of Jones, “He’s a good man, he’s honest, and he’s benevolent. He’s done some wonderful things for people that no one knows about. He’s still paying medical bills for some former Cowboys coaches who’ve been out of football for a long time.”
The Cowboys bounced back from their shutout loss to the Patriots with an impressive home victory against Carolina, 24–20, as Quincy Carter tossed two touchdowns. Then Parcells’s team suffered blowout losses versus Miami and Philadelphia, but Dallas’s defense returned to form with a 19–3 victory over Big Blue at Texas Stadium. The December 21 outcome improved Parcells’s Dallas Cowboys to 10-5, and secured the team a wild-card berth—the franchise’s first playoff appearance in four years. A loss in the regular-season finale against New Orleans left the Cowboys second in the NFC East to Philadelphia.
Having defeated only two opponents with records above .500, Dallas entered the playoffs, facing Carolina on the road, far from being a powerful team. The Cowboys’ strength lay in their defense, ranked first in the NFL after allowing the fewest yards per game, 253.5, and the second-fewest points, 16.3. The unit often kept Dallas in games despite an inconsistent offense that averaged only 18.1 points.
Quincy Carter’s 3,302 passing yards gave him the fifth-highest total in franchise history, but his 21 interceptions versus 17 touchdowns dismayed Parcells. One major plus about Carter’s season occurred off the gridiron, where he had passed a slew of unannounced drug tests.
On January 3, 2004, the Cowboys’ flaws were exposed at Ericsson Stadium in their rematch against the Panthers. With temperatures in Charlotte reaching the sixties, Dallas’s offense stayed cold throughout the game, collecting only 204 yards as Carter faced constant pressure, particularly from blitzes. Troy Hambrick’s 29 yards on 8 carries illustrated Dallas’s need for improvement at starting tailback. Against Carolina, Dallas’s defense turned into a weakness as cornerback Terence Newman constantly permitted big plays: wideouts Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammad combined for 238 receiving yards on Jake Delhomme’s throws. Dallas’s season ended with a 29–10 loss, extending the franchise’s streak to seven years without a playoff victory. Carolina would reach Super Bowl XXXVIII before losing to New England, 32–29, giving Bill Belichick the same number of Lombardi Trophies as his mentor.
Despite ending the season on a down note, Parcells had orchestrated the second-biggest reversal in team annals. He also made NFL history as the only coach to guide four different t
eams to the playoffs. Affirming his turnaround touch, Parcells restored respectability to a franchise coming off three consecutive 5-11 seasons, and Jerry Jones’s Cowboys began to reap the financial benefits. Pepsi re-upped its pouring-rights deal at Texas Stadium, reportedly for a record $33 million.
Parcells’s efforts were particularly impressive given an offense using stopgap pieces at crucial positions, and a staff almost devoid of his acolytes. He had started molding new ones, but given the team’s tremendous strides, they quickly attracted attention for head-coaching positions among suitors that included an iconic NFL owner.
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On January 7, 2004, Joe Gibbs announced his NFL return after an eleven-year absence. Despite the lengthy break, Parcells’s memories of his sideline rival remained fresh, so on the day of the stunning news Parcells sent a one-sentence fax to Redskins Park. “Does this mean we can’t talk for another five years?”
Reading the communique at his office desk, Joe Gibbs laughed loudly.
He recalls, “I thought that was pretty good. He was joking because we never talked before. I didn’t answer, but he knew the answer was ‘Yes!’ I didn’t want to talk to him, and he didn’t want to talk to me.”
Parcells and Gibbs were mutual admirers from afar, but considered each other enemies on game day, so interactions were limited to routine postgame handshakes and pregame nods. Their brilliant careers had intertwined in the NFC East while it dominated the league, often pitting Big Blue against Washington in epic clashes that determined both championships and legacies. The ultracompetitive division featured smashmouth football while regularly producing Super Bowl victors. During the stretch that they were opposing head coaches, from 1983 to 1990, Parcells reached the Super Bowl twice, triumphing each time; Gibbs got there once, obtaining his second of what would be three Lombardi Trophies.
Washington’s storied offensive line, the Hogs, was the NFL’s bulkiest; New York’s defensive front seven, starring Lawrence Taylor, was the biggest. So the Giants and Washington often engaged in explosive goal-line stands. “Hammer city,” recalls Gibbs. The Giants and Redskins banged away at each other in classic battles at the Meadowlands and Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. Although Parcells won most of them, including six straight, he considered Gibbs his most formidable counterpart. “Ninety percent of those games,” Parcells says, “could have been won by either team.” When they went head-to-head, Parcells’s Giants averaged 22.1 points and Gibbs’s Redskins 21.4.
Perhaps the most memorable showdown was the NFC Championship on January 11, 1987, at Giants Stadium, under windy, freezing conditions. Big Blue triumphed 17–0, the first-ever shutout against a Gibbs-led team. But one of Parcells’s favorite contests took place on September 11, 1989, at RFK Memorial Stadium—his only game versus Gibbs that was settled on the final play. The Giants won, 27–24, when Raul Allegre booted a 52-yard field goal as time expired. Parcells had relished silencing Washington’s rabid crowd of 54,160.
When Parcells quit the sidelines in 1991, Gibbs predicted that his rival would return sooner than later. After the Redskins icon retired in early 1993, partly from exhaustion, Parcells expressed empathy for Gibbs. Now, as Parcells entered his second year in Dallas, he knew that Gibbs’s presence would make the division even tougher—and that the Cowboys leader needed to keep his talented staff as intact as possible.
Having played a key role in helping his mutual friends consummate an improbable marriage in Dallas, Al Davis took special note of the team’s turnaround. The Raiders boss was particularly impressed with Quincy Carter’s progress in an offense lacking a top runner or a first-rate wideout. So on firing his head coach, Bill Callahan, after a 4-12 season, Al Davis gained permission from the Cowboys to interview their top two offensive coaches: Mo Carthon and Sean Payton. Despite preferring to keep them, Parcells felt compelled to let his assistants pursue a head-coaching opportunity, and even recommended the duo to his longtime consigliere.
Bill Callahan happened to be Sean Payton’s friend and ex-Eagles colleague, but only two years removed from being demoted as Giants offensive coordinator, Payton was thrilled by Davis’s interest. One of five candidates discussing the head coach opening with the Raiders chief in early January, Payton arrived at the team’s headquarters in Alameda, California, with a bad case of the jitters. A few moments before meeting pro football’s éminence grise, the forty-year-old coach walked into the bathroom and took three deep breaths while saying to himself, “I belong here. I belong here. I belong here.”
In mid-January Payton was the only candidate flown back to Oakland for a second round of interviews with Al Davis and personnel executive Mike Lombardi that spanned four days. By the end of Payton’s trip, Davis all but officially offered him the job. Despite his inclination to accept, Payton needed to fulfill his promise to discuss the matter with his wife.
Heading to the airport for a flight to Dallas on Tuesday, January 20, Payton checked his voice mail, which included three messages from Parcells bent on finding out his quarterbacks coach’s decision firsthand. As Payton walked toward his flight gate a TV monitor airing ESPN showed his face next to the Raiders logo while reporting that he was set to sign a four-year deal with Al Davis. Later that night Beth Payton expressed reluctance to her husband, but after sleeping on it, Sean Payton awoke early in the morning aching to be a head coach. After persuading his wife, Payton purchased a black suit and silver tie—Raiders colors—in anticipation of his introductory press conference. He also contacted some coaches to gauge their interest in being part of his imminent new staff.
The switch to the Raiders seemed so inevitable that Dallas’s equipment manager cleaned out Payton’s locker, but when he arrived at his office the next day, Payton checked in with three head-coaching friends who had ties to Al Davis: Carolina’s John Fox, Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden, and Bill Callahan, recently hired to guide the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Fox had been the Raiders’ defensive coordinator in 1994 (under Art Shell) and 1995 (Mike White), Gruden their head coach from 1998 to 2001, and Callahan had guided the Raiders to the 2003 Super Bowl in his rookie season. After Payton heard their takes, he received a phone call from Parcells.
“Listen, Sean, I want to talk to you for a minute like you were my son, not like I’m the head coach and you’re my assistant. These other people that you’re close to in the industry: what do they think you should do?”
Payton indicated that the three opinions he’d solicited tilted toward his remaining in Dallas.
Parcells wanted to hear each individual response. “What about Gruden?”
Payton replied, “He doesn’t think I should take the job. Absolutely not.”
“Fox?”
“He doesn’t think I should take the job.”
“Callahan?”
“He doesn’t think I should take the job either.”
“Well, put my name behind those three. You’re going to get your chance. This just isn’t the right one, kid.”
Bill Parcells had described Sean Payton to Al Davis as being energetic and driven with an unusually sharp offensive mind. But in attempting to dissuade his quarterbacks coach, Parcells told Payton that he needed more grooming. A few minutes after Payton hung up, he received a call from Jerry Jones requesting his presence at the owner’s mansion in Highland Park. When Payton arrived, the two went into Jones’s library. During their conversation the owner focused on how much the organization valued its quarterbacks coach. By the end of the get-together, Payton’s desire to join the Raiders had evaporated.
Driving home, Payton called his wife about his change of heart, eliciting tears of delight. Then he telephoned Parcells about his final decision, followed by a call to Jerry Jones. The next morning, minutes after Payton arrived at his office, Stephen Jones walked in with a new contract; it included a $500,000 raise, part of a three-year deal worth $3 million as an assistant head coach keeping the same duties.
After Al Davis found out, he dialed Bill Parcells to complain. “Why didn’t you jus
t tell me you wanted to keep him?”
Parcells replied, “Coach, who would want to lose one of his top assistants? I didn’t know Jerry was going to pay him the extra money. But he really didn’t want to come out there. I don’t know exactly why.”
“All right, I’ll just have to get somebody else.”
Davis hired Dolphins offensive coordinator Norv Turner for Oakland’s lead job, and Parcells was delighted about keeping Maurice Carthon, too. The Cowboys also avoided a significant staff loss by persuading Mike Zimmer to ignore interest from the Nebraska Cornhuskers about their head-coaching opening. Zimmer’s decision came after the Cowboys gave him virtually the same raise as Payton, doubling his salary to $1 million.
Lastly, after waiting one season for Todd Haley to be free from his contract with the Chicago Bears, Parcells hired him as wide-receivers coach.
In March, Jerry Jones acquired the rights to former baseball player Drew Henson from the Texans in exchange for a 2005 third-round pick, then handed him a contract guaranteeing $3.5 million. The twenty-four-year-old hadn’t played football since 2000, when he flourished as a junior at Michigan, earning distinction as one of the nation’s top passers. Henson, who had backed up Tom Brady for two seasons, quit football by his senior year, inking a six-year, $17 million deal with the Yankees to become their future third baseman. After three years of mixed results, mostly with the club’s affiliates, Henson ended his baseball aspirations, relinquishing the $12 million left on his contract. With the addition of the six-five, 230-pounder, the Cowboys now had three former minor leaguers at quarterback.
Parcells further altered Dallas’s roster by adding two more of his former players. He traded wideout Joey Galloway to Tampa Bay for Keyshawn Johnson, and signed quarterback Vinny Testaverde, a Jets free agent, as insurance behind Quincy Carter for one season. Parcells described Testaverde, turning forty-one in November, as someone who would have a dynamic arm until he died of old age. Mostly backing up Chad Pennington in 2003, Testaverde had looked sharp, throwing seven touchdowns and two interceptions before Gang Green released him for salary-cap reasons. His presence signaled Chad Hutchinson’s imminent release, while casting doubt on Tony Romo’s future in Dallas, given the young gunslinger’s status as a fourth quarterback.
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