CoCo;1581206 said:
A couple comments from those close to the situation have me really wondering what Parcells' assessment of this coaching transition would be...
I think it was Sparano who this week was quoted as saying that he and Parcells used to fight (my word) about how much rope to give Romo during games. Parcells instincts were always "close to the vest" while Sparano wanted to give Romo more opportunities to make plays. But there was an implication in that story that Parcells knew his own weakness (conservatism) and perhaps wanted Sparano to challenge him for the good of the team. Did he want that tension of conservative (himself) vs aggressive (Sparano) because he knew each had its place and that left to himself things would be overly conservative and not best for the team?
I saw that Sparano comment, Coco, that Bill accused him of being 'run and shoot'. LOL!
But the interplay of coaching personalities always was what you say - Bill wanted to be challenged, and strong wills were something he tended to admire. The strong will that needed to assert itself more, imo, was that of Sean Payton...but I suspect his falling out with Fasell in NY put a lid on his outspokenness. He was biding his time for his own gig, but at least he seems to have sold Tony consistently, which in the final analysis looms more important than being able to sell a 'wider open' offense to the always ball control obsessed Parcells.
Bill has said (it's quoted in one of his bios, but I forget which) that early in his career in NY (I believe it was his first, and a losing season) he vowed to himself that he would never again take the rap for a coach on his staff who was not up to par. Because it is the head coach's head on the line. That is when he expressed the idea that if he went down, it would be because he screwed up, not someone else.
Well fine, but I think that emphasis also makes a coach unwilling to delegate the authority he NEEDS to delegate, and in Dallas, I thought it was not just his coaches he did not give enough authority to, but his players. He was always into everything in his other stints, but here he really seemed to micro-manage. The team always seemed in some ways over-coached, and yet subject to the fatal error.
And I think the way the last game of his career ended, with his beloved TG fumbling that play that turned the tide, and the unfortunate turn of events involving Tony, the QB he had benched another old favorite for) must have struck him that something had gone very very wrong (in addition to the pass D) , and that is if you don't trust your players to win, they won't.
Bill's other teams had
character, and it wasn't about any individual's morals, of course. It was about how intense work ethic from off season conditioning programs to deep in December rose, and intensified, and crested in late season, and here, the oposite was true. The most stunning thing about the Parcells' Dallas teams, imo, were the late season slumps, if not collapses. December is when Parcells showed who he was, and what his team was. And he just couldn't do it here - he could not forge "winners", for whatever reason (and I can't believe it is about the individual characters of players - it's about a failure of collective will, imo.
And THAT is on the coach. Bill knew that better than anyone.
Did that same dynamic exist on defense without someone (the DC perhaps) to challenge him to turn the dogs loose a bit more? Was the result that there was no one to balance Parcells conservative nature and our defense became predictable as a result as has been quoted by players and opponents alike?
It is my feeling that although Zim most certainly earned, and deserved Tuna's respect, he never won his full confidence. That is something that can't be proven, and maybe it's just they were too much alike to bring out the best in the personnel.
In Brad Sham's comments to KTCK (see thread) he cites Bill's awareness that his style would not be tolerated (my word) if the team wasn't winning. He knew he'd be perceived as an SOB because of his insistence on running all things his way. And yet, per Sham, Parcells chose that way because he believed it would lead to winning. He was willing to be perceived as the bad guy because he believed in the end the organization would be better for it.
As Hos mentioned, the very first Parcells Dallas tc , he was reported to have told Jerry "doing it my way, you have to win fast. Because if you don't, the approach wears on the players. You have to WIN to get them to buy into the discipline". (paraphrase)
This is something Bill realized over the years - the guys who chafe under his type of regime can only be held at bay for so long - you have to throw them some meat, and that is winning play off games. Tuna couldn't do it in four years, and imo he knew one more year bore a fairly decent likelihood of anything from brush fires to outright mutiny breaking out - and he was NOT willing to have his last year in coaching characterized as a loose ship. Or to have his legacy tarnished by a final season under fire from players, owner, and press.
I think Tuna carefully weighed the potential loss vs the potential gains, and saw the odds he loved so much to play were VERY much stacked against him if he went for one more (lame duck) season.
Perhaps that is why Parcells had such a short life cycle in each of his stops. He knew his welcome would wear out. Maybe he even didn't like himself in that role and yet it was a personal sacrifice he was willing to make because he believed the organization would win.
Yes, he said that about the welcome wearing out often enough.
I'm considering anew, this view of Parcells as a talented but tortured football coach. He confirmed at times that football is what he was born to do. He recognized that. He also believed that his call was to lead in a certain manner that ultimately would win and yet grate on most every step of the way. His gruff exterior said that didn't matter. But deep down it did matter, he knew that, and knew as well that his stays would be short-lived because in a sense Bill Parcells the person also could take only so much of Bill Parcells the coach.
I wonder too if Parcells didn't have a greater awareness of his own shortcomings (too conservative, too controlling) than he ever let on. I wonder if even that awareness was not enough to bring him into balance. Rather he needed that balance in the form of another person. Sparano was up to the task. He would fight him. Perhaps its even why he blocked Sparano from talking with the Saints under Payton. Perhaps Zimmer couldn't read between the lines and challenge the legend's strong but unbalanced hand on the defense.
I'm sure it still hurts Bill to hear the collective sighs of relief coming from various corners of VR these days. But I wonder if deep down he isn't fully aware of why they're sighing, a bit in agreement with them, and even glad himself to be away from BP the inflexible unbalanced taskmaster head coach.
I also wonder if Bill wasn't aware of his own shortcomings to the point that he felt what was really needed again for Bill Parcells the person (after 4 years of living with the tyrant of BP the coach) was also the best thing for the Dallas Cowboys.
Beautifully said. Bill made enough remarks over the years (the comments that he was never 'happy' in particular, and the outloud musing over choices he had made) to demonstrate that he was a much more complex man than he had been when younger. (Jerry mentioned a few times he was struck by how 'complex' Bill was') If he second guessed himself often, or at all, in his early years, he didn't have the tendency to vocalize it. In Dallas, he did.
Ironically, as he grew into a mature, more sophisticated man, the assurity of his coaching 'rightness' seems to have dwindled, but his grip on control increased. So when he publically mused about things that many termed 'philosophical', he revealed something of his inner debate. Over the four years here, he had become a very reflective man, and there always seemed to me considerable tension between the 'old' sure of his path Bill, and the new more 'existentially' aware Tuna.