Sunday, January 17, 1999
Parcells' program perfect for Jets
Fear, loyalty fuel champions
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
DENVER — Either you buy into Bill Parcells or he'll sell you down the Jersey shore.
At the moment, his New York Jets have bought the program with cash on the barrel head. So Parcells has bullied, needled, cajoled and willed them into today's AFC championship game against the Broncos, transforming the 1-15 losers of two years ago into something reminiscent of the Giants team that he led to two Super Bowl titles.
“Oh yeah, there's fear there,” said rookie right tackle Jason Fabini, the University of Cincinnati product who has overcome Parcells' disdain for rookies.
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Try last month against Seattle. The Jets had just secured their most thrilling victory of the season, erasing a 31-19 fourth-quarter deficit on Vinny Testaverde's five-yard quarterback sneak on fourth-and-5 with 20 seconds left. As the din of the Meadowlands saluted the Jets prolonged life in the AFC East race, Fabini was sneaking off the field instead of celebrating, trying to hide from Parcells.
The reason it was fourth-and-five was because Fabini had false-started at the goal line, pushing the Jets back. Parcells wasn't celebrating, either. He was looking for Fabini. When he found him, he barked, “That could have cost us the bleeping game.”
Fabini nodded.
“I know,” he said.
“I don't want to hear that crap,” Parcells said.
“He threatens guys with jobs, but he also says the good things, too,” said Fabini of the man who plucked him out of the middle of the NFL Draft and put him into the middle of the playoffs.
“He's honest. He told me at the beginning of the year he'd give me a chance. He said, "I go by what I see. If you play well, you'll play.' I'm lucky I came to a team where the guy goes by what he sees.”
There is more to what you see with this Parcells. The ruthless dictator had to pause for nearly two minutes when addressing his team after the Jets clinched the AFC East title. That will happen when you get overthrown by emotion.
Fabini says he's lucky playing for Parcells. Running back Joe Morris, long retired since helping Parcells to his first Super Bowl title with the Giants in 1986, isn't so sure.
“The best quote I ever read about Parcells came from Jeff Hostetler,” said Morris last week from New Jersey, where he is part-owner of an Arena Football League team. “He said he got used to the winning, but he didn't enjoy most of it.
“Bill has a will to win. ... I have no personal feelings for him. There's a certain way you treat people. ... I don't like the bullying and the other stuff. I didn't buy into it.”
If there was ever a guy who should have been one of Parcells' guys in the Carl Banks-Pepper Johnson-Maurice Carthon mold, it was Morris. At 5-foot-7, Morris defied the odds to become a reliable and at times spectacular back protecting quarterback Phil Simms in a power game, rushing for 1,500 yards on the way to the Super Bowl. But Parcells never forgave him for holding out of training camp before that season.
Morris can still hear Parcells' chilling words: “"That will come back to you,' and I understood exactly what that meant. He's a very vengeful man.”
So Morris wasn't surprised when Parcells waived him on Cutdown Day just before the 1990 season, a year after he broke his leg. Morris is still bitter Parcells didn't cut him in the off-season so he'd have a better shot landing with another club. He feels Parcells, “put out the word against me. He just didn't want me back in the league.”
Ask Parcells how he turned around the Jets, and it's all about the program.
“I tried to get them convinced in the program,” Parcells, 57, said last week as he prepared to become the first man to take his third team to a championship game.
“I held a meeting with the team pretty early on. I flew everybody in here and tried to give them an idea of what we were going to try to do knowing full well they had heard several coaches stand up before them with new programs.”
The Parcells program is why Testaverde signed with the Jets before this season, after 11 seasons, three cities, and three head coaches in six years.
“I knew I wouldn't have to worry about anything but myself,” Testaverde said. “Bill would have everyone focused and thinking about business.”
Cornerback Otis Smith seems to be buying in. He was released by the Jets in the middle of the 1996 season and hooked on with Parcells' Patriots. When Parcells bolted for New York the next season, Smith followed even though he admits the coach is “rough,” on him.
“If you win four straight games and lose one, that week isn't going to be any fun,” Smith said. “He knows how to push the right buttons. It's a style that works for me. He likes aggressive players who aren't afraid to try to make plays.”
When Morris played, the Giants would win, Morris would go for 150 yards rushing and Parcells would stand up there and say not everyone was playing as hard as they should. And it galled Morris, who always thought Parcells was talking about him.
Talk about pushing buttons. Coaches have lost their jobs because they couldn't find the handle on combustible linebacker Bryan Cox.
But Cox loved it when Parcells left a Christmas present at his locker late in the season. It was a gas can filled with water with a note that said, “Dear Bryan. Are you out of gas? Merry Christmas, Bill Parcells.”
Mickey Corcoran calls him a master motivator. He says everything Parcells does has a motive. He should know, because even though Corcoran coached him 40 years ago on the River Dell High School basketball team in Orade ll, N.J., Parcells still stays close. They spend the off-season on the golf course needling into their handicaps.
“He loves being with the players. This stuff about guys playing for him out of fear is crap,” Corcoran said. “He knows when to kick butt and when to pat on the back. There's not a guy around who handles the kids of today better.”
It's how Parcells wanted to be treated. Tough love.
Parcells, a power forward, was already Corcoran's best player when he was a sophomore. Corcoran remembers River Dell leading by 16 points when Parcells yelled at an official and got a technical foul in the first half.
Corcoran pulled him and never put him back in despite losing in overtime. The next day, Corcoran made him apologize to the team before he came back to practice.
Maybe Parcells still likes the interaction because he's still in touch with the old coach. When Parcells made his first playoffs in 1984, Corcoran got a call in his office at school just before the weekend closed in. It was Parcells inviting him to Los Angeles for the game.
There's more than two sides to this Parcells. Smith was asked what kind of relationship he'll have with him after football and Smith said, “I don't know, but he'll probably hire me.”
It's probably true. Banks is the Jets' director of player development. Carthon is the Jets' running backs coach. Johnson, a rookie linebacker on the '86 Giants, followed him to play a final year or two at age 34. In the Jets' media guide, listed under the assistant coaches' years in the NFL are the years they have been with Parcells.
You have to buy in, but even the guys who didn't walk away with something from him.
Morris didn't want to do it, but three years ago he called Parcells to help his brother get a job with the Patriots. Morris was surprised when during the conversation Parcells told him he considered him “one of his guys.” A few weeks later, Mike Morris got a job.
“I do know this,” Joe Morris said. “He made me a better player.”
He didn't make a friend, but he made a Pro Bowler, which is the way Parcells probably would have wanted it, anyway.
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