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Another Chance for Carter, and Payback for Parcells
By HARVEY ARATON
Published: November 12, 2004
empstead, N.Y.
FROM a nearby perch inside the locker room, Sam Cowart has had an unobstructed view of the assimilation of Quincy Carter, the quarterback who was decommissioned last summer in Dallas, into the Hermanized order of fraternal Jets.
"Most of us already knew him, just the way you know guys around the league," Cowart, the veteran linebacker, said, a few feet from Carter's vacant locker stall. "But I can tell you that he came in here from the first day and has worked hard and been determined to prove he's not the guy the Cowboys' organization made him out to be."
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None of the Jets who vouched for Carter yesterday as a model teammate - including the soft-spoken and sage Curtis Martin and the good neighbor Cowart - claimed to know exactly what happened in Dallas. Yet Cowart's phraseology - "not the guy the Cowboys' organization made him out to be" - left little doubt that he thought something wasn't kosher when Bill Parcells canned Carter for what was believed to be the failure of a second drug test.
The presses need not be stopped when one player sympathizes with another in a falling-out with the Orwellian National Football League establishment. But if the leaks were accurate, if Carter was guilty of committing a second strike in the league's multipronged drug plan, it could also be argued that his release, beyond being excessively punitive, amounted to a character-smearing smokescreen for Parcells to rid the Cowboys of a player he decided he didn't need.
Why would I suspect - as many players undoubtedly do - that Parcells wasn't quite motivated in this case by moral outrage? For one thing, he was the coach who for years kept his head in the Giants' playbook while Lawrence Taylor was pillaging North Jersey as long as he was treating opponents likewise. For another, how many times in the N.F.L. or any league does a player carrying his weight, much less his team, receive his walking papers for a drug infraction that doesn't mandate automatic action?
The Baltimore Ravens' Jamal Lewis, on his way to prison after the season for pleading guilty last month to a four-year-old drug charge, was benched by the league for two lousy games. For an apparent violation that did not call for public disclosure, Carter was sacrificed to the altar of our 24-hour sports-talk culture where, as Cowart said, "Things get out of proportion when they shouldn't be out there at all, and you are tarnished."
This week, as Carter prepares to step in for the injured Chad Pennington against Ray Lewis and Baltimore's carnivorous defense, he has admirably remained on the high road, refusing to so much as look in the rear-view mirror.
He didn't take the bait Wednesday when asked about Dallas or the redemptive opportunities in the next two to four weeks, or for however long Pennington is out with what has been diagnosed as a strained right rotator cuff. Carter made a brief appearance at his dressing stall yesterday but decided to not speak to reporters.
Without suggesting that Carter need not have been accountable, as much to himself as to his team, for whatever his issues were in Dallas, there is some poetic justice playing out in the form of the unyielding concept of N.F.L. parity. After returning the Cowboys to the playoffs for the first time since the 1999 season and enhancing his already legendary standing as Coach Quick-Fix, Parcells and his team have already receded to the outer margins of wild-card contention.
Parcells installed 41-year-old Vinny Testaverde as his starter in August - choosing last season's Jets reserve quarterback over Carter and losing 14 years of athleticism in the process.
He also left himself with a backup quarterback, Drew Henson, who is still trying to remember that the bench is not the dugout. This may sound familiar to Jets fans in a nightmarish sort of way. In 1999, the same Testaverde went down and Parcells was left with The Great (Scott) Zolak, Ray (Lucas) from Rutgers and Rick Mirer.
In the process, Parcells's Cowboys have stumbled to five defeats in eight games (with the Eagles up next), and the coach with the 10-gallon temper has taken to habitually lambasting his players as stupid.
That's his word and he's sticking with it, explaining after Sunday's 26-3 humbling in Cincinnati: "I'm saying collectively, we perform with a lack of intelligence. I'm just using a shorter word for it."
To quote the mother of another football hero, Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does." Do you think the slow-footed Cowboys, 22nd in the league in rushing, could have used Carter, described by Jets Coach Herman Edwards as "a guy that can make some plays with his legs?"
Carter has a strong arm but problems with accuracy. He's a good athlete, but he's not Michael Vick. He's not Steve McNair. If it turns out that Pennington has a rotator cuff tear, no one is saying that Carter will be the Jets' savior. But he did throw for 3,302 yards last season. He did win 10 games. He did take a Parcells team to the playoffs, proof enough for Curtis Martin.
"You have to be a fighter to be a Parcells quarterback," he said.
Of course, the follow-up had to be, why would Parcells unceremoniously dump an athletic fighter in his prime for an old, immobile gunslinger?
Like Cowart, Martin said he had no clue, only that he was "glad we got Quincy when we got him."
If Parcells exploited Carter's drug problem to push his personnel agenda, he deserves what he's getting.
By HARVEY ARATON
Published: November 12, 2004
empstead, N.Y.
FROM a nearby perch inside the locker room, Sam Cowart has had an unobstructed view of the assimilation of Quincy Carter, the quarterback who was decommissioned last summer in Dallas, into the Hermanized order of fraternal Jets.
"Most of us already knew him, just the way you know guys around the league," Cowart, the veteran linebacker, said, a few feet from Carter's vacant locker stall. "But I can tell you that he came in here from the first day and has worked hard and been determined to prove he's not the guy the Cowboys' organization made him out to be."
Advertisement
None of the Jets who vouched for Carter yesterday as a model teammate - including the soft-spoken and sage Curtis Martin and the good neighbor Cowart - claimed to know exactly what happened in Dallas. Yet Cowart's phraseology - "not the guy the Cowboys' organization made him out to be" - left little doubt that he thought something wasn't kosher when Bill Parcells canned Carter for what was believed to be the failure of a second drug test.
The presses need not be stopped when one player sympathizes with another in a falling-out with the Orwellian National Football League establishment. But if the leaks were accurate, if Carter was guilty of committing a second strike in the league's multipronged drug plan, it could also be argued that his release, beyond being excessively punitive, amounted to a character-smearing smokescreen for Parcells to rid the Cowboys of a player he decided he didn't need.
Why would I suspect - as many players undoubtedly do - that Parcells wasn't quite motivated in this case by moral outrage? For one thing, he was the coach who for years kept his head in the Giants' playbook while Lawrence Taylor was pillaging North Jersey as long as he was treating opponents likewise. For another, how many times in the N.F.L. or any league does a player carrying his weight, much less his team, receive his walking papers for a drug infraction that doesn't mandate automatic action?
The Baltimore Ravens' Jamal Lewis, on his way to prison after the season for pleading guilty last month to a four-year-old drug charge, was benched by the league for two lousy games. For an apparent violation that did not call for public disclosure, Carter was sacrificed to the altar of our 24-hour sports-talk culture where, as Cowart said, "Things get out of proportion when they shouldn't be out there at all, and you are tarnished."
This week, as Carter prepares to step in for the injured Chad Pennington against Ray Lewis and Baltimore's carnivorous defense, he has admirably remained on the high road, refusing to so much as look in the rear-view mirror.
He didn't take the bait Wednesday when asked about Dallas or the redemptive opportunities in the next two to four weeks, or for however long Pennington is out with what has been diagnosed as a strained right rotator cuff. Carter made a brief appearance at his dressing stall yesterday but decided to not speak to reporters.
Without suggesting that Carter need not have been accountable, as much to himself as to his team, for whatever his issues were in Dallas, there is some poetic justice playing out in the form of the unyielding concept of N.F.L. parity. After returning the Cowboys to the playoffs for the first time since the 1999 season and enhancing his already legendary standing as Coach Quick-Fix, Parcells and his team have already receded to the outer margins of wild-card contention.
Parcells installed 41-year-old Vinny Testaverde as his starter in August - choosing last season's Jets reserve quarterback over Carter and losing 14 years of athleticism in the process.
He also left himself with a backup quarterback, Drew Henson, who is still trying to remember that the bench is not the dugout. This may sound familiar to Jets fans in a nightmarish sort of way. In 1999, the same Testaverde went down and Parcells was left with The Great (Scott) Zolak, Ray (Lucas) from Rutgers and Rick Mirer.
In the process, Parcells's Cowboys have stumbled to five defeats in eight games (with the Eagles up next), and the coach with the 10-gallon temper has taken to habitually lambasting his players as stupid.
That's his word and he's sticking with it, explaining after Sunday's 26-3 humbling in Cincinnati: "I'm saying collectively, we perform with a lack of intelligence. I'm just using a shorter word for it."
To quote the mother of another football hero, Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does." Do you think the slow-footed Cowboys, 22nd in the league in rushing, could have used Carter, described by Jets Coach Herman Edwards as "a guy that can make some plays with his legs?"
Carter has a strong arm but problems with accuracy. He's a good athlete, but he's not Michael Vick. He's not Steve McNair. If it turns out that Pennington has a rotator cuff tear, no one is saying that Carter will be the Jets' savior. But he did throw for 3,302 yards last season. He did win 10 games. He did take a Parcells team to the playoffs, proof enough for Curtis Martin.
"You have to be a fighter to be a Parcells quarterback," he said.
Of course, the follow-up had to be, why would Parcells unceremoniously dump an athletic fighter in his prime for an old, immobile gunslinger?
Like Cowart, Martin said he had no clue, only that he was "glad we got Quincy when we got him."
If Parcells exploited Carter's drug problem to push his personnel agenda, he deserves what he's getting.
