3161

In Dallas, Parcells had a worse overall win percentage than Phillips and no playoff wins versus one playoff win for Phillips. His best season with Dallas was his first, using a roster built primarily by Dave Campo and Chan Gailey. It seems that Phillips made better use of Parcells’ players than Parcells did.

As far as Jerry Jones being put in timeout by Parcells, that ridiculous. The only way Terrell Owens joins the Cowboys is from Jerry overriding any objection Big Bill might have.

So, yeah, not that big a fan of Parcells. He has his strengths for sure but he seems overhyped to me.

3162

You weren’t impressed with what he did with the Patriots back in the 90s?

3163

Yes…and no. Bill built the foundation that the current Pats are built on, but he is not remembered very fondly after his bullshit around the Superbowl. Nothing like a coach helping lose the biggest game of the year. Then quits a week later and he goes to the fucking Jets?
Yeah just thinking about it, I still dislike him. But he is brilliant at revitalizing a ailing franchise.

3164

I thought he was at his best with the Giants and gotten gradually worse over time as a coach. He continues to be a very good evaluator of players and coaches but I don’t think he can get the most out of his players like he did when he began.

3165

Pretty much. He wins a Superbowl with the Giants, loses the Superbowl with the Patriots, Loses the AFC title game with the Jets, makes the playoffs with the Cowboys, sneaks into the playoffs with the Dolphins. I do love how the day after the Patriots dismantled the Dolphins he was on the next flight.

3166

The drama never ends.

3167

Eh, I think they just rushed him in too fast. After a season of rest, he’ll be okay.

3168

That doesn’t seem to be a very hard skill relative to winning to a Super Bowl – regression to the mean and all that. There are coaches known as great turnaround specialists (Jim Mora Sr., Marty) but who couldn’t get it done all the way.

I wonder if Parcells slide somehow correlates to free agency, since the balance of power went from the team to the players slowly from the mid-90s on…

3169

I completely agree Bacon, I’ll take the Belichick model over Parcells any day of the week.

3170

Dolphins bench Henne, name Pennington starter for Sunday

3171

Hilarity from the junior leagues last week:

3172

Is that…legal?

3173

Sure it’s legal. It was a legal snap , there were no false starts, etc. It was just a misdirection play and wouldn’t have worked on more polished players.

3174

He was pretending to walk off a non-existent 5 yard penalty. Presumably he told the center to ‘Hand me the ball.’

They were trailing 6-0 in the 4th quarter of the championship game, so if there ever was a time to use the ultimate trick play, this was it.

Note - the game ended in a tie, and the tiebreaker on the championship was not in their favor, so ultimately they ‘lost’ the championship.

3175

It reminds me of that play where Kurt Warner pretended he couldn’t hear the coaches, even unsnapping his helmet and they did a direct snap (to Faulk?)

3176

I recall P. Manning trying a similar play a few years back with a direct snap to the RB. The refs flagged it for some reason (illegal motion or formation?) and they lost penalty yards for trying it. The confused sense I got from that is that modern rules tweaks have made plays like that nearly impossible to do legally in the NFL.

3177

The thing is, if there were actually a penalty for him to walk off, walking it off himself, instead of an official, is a penalty for delay of game. Same is true of the ol’ “wrong ball” trick. So that’s a dead giveaway to the defense – that the kid started walking with the ball, and the ref didn’t throw the flag.

This kid wasn’t fooled. :)

3178

You kind of missed what I was saying. I’m not talking coaching here. Parcells acquired the talent that let Phillips be successful. Parcells found Tony Romo and Miles Austin as undrafted free agents. Seriously, it’s a freaking stroke of luck to get a Pro Bowl QB as an undrafted free agent. He also got mainstays with the team like Jay Ratliffe, Demarcus Ware and Jason Witten in the draft.

He left a lot of talent for Phillips to use.

And note that TO was brought in to Dallas in Parcells’ last year. At that point, I think Jones was tired of being put in a corner, and decided to use his power…as the guy who paid Parcells. Parcells coached that one last year and then said…screw it.

Note that I’m a Redskins fan, and I have hated Parcells since the mid 80s, when I remember little Joe Morris tear us up on the ground, and seeing Mark Bavaro somehow score on 80 yard TD passes from Phil Simms. Parcells is a jerk, and I do think he’s overrated as a coach. But he’s historically been great at acquiring and developing talent.

3179

I was looking at the pick 'em thread we have going and was kind of surprised to see that I’d actually picked the Ravens tonight. I couldn’t remember why I had done that. And then I remembered - it was because the general consensus seems to be that the AFC is notably better this year, and since the Ravens are looking like one of the top AFC teams I figured that if the consensus was right they should be able to beat the Falcons in Atlanta. That they didn’t suggests to me that maybe the consensus is wrong. Perhaps the top NFC teams are good enough to give the top AFC teams a game.

3180

The general consensus was the top AFC teams were better than the top NFC teams, but lately that’s been challenged. The Eagles beat the Colts (albeit a depleted, beat up Colts team), the Packers beat the Jets, and now the Falcons beat the Ravens. Nice to see.