It’s hard to determine what it is that makes a head coach great. There are too many variables that factor in. What happens if a coach had a really talented roster? Does that take away from his ability to coach? Bill Belichick never had a winning record with the Cleveland Browns, but since he drafted Tom Brady in 2001, he has won 76% of his games, including four Super Bowls. The best teams during the 80’s and 90’s were the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, and while many credit Bill Walsh and Jimmy Johnson for their success, they both won a championship with George Seifert and Barry Switzer at the helm, respectively, afterwards. If a team is good, it reflects well on everyone involved. The players look better, the coaches look better, and the fans feel better. Thankfully, when it comes to Bill Parcells, this isn’t an issue.
Bill Parcells Legacy: Defined by Greatness
Unlike his protégé, Bill Belichick, Parcells found success wherever he went. As the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for the New York Giants, he was hugely responsible for the development and success of Hall of Fame pass rusher, Lawrence Taylor. With the Giants, Parcells made the playoffs five times, won the division three times, and won the Super Bowl twice.
After a two year hiatus, Parcells returned to the NFL as the New England Patriots head coach in 1993. The Patriots had been struggling, finishing no better than third in the division over the previous five seasons, and despite the Patriots only winning five games in Parcells’ first year as head coach, success wasn’t far away as they made the playoffs the next year. Two years later, Parcells and the Patriots would not only win the division, but make it all the way to the Super Bowl with Drew Bledsoe under center.
After failing to win the Super Bowl, Parcells opted to leave New England for gang greener pastures. After some legal difficulties, the New York Jets essentially traded a first, second, third, and fourth round pick for Parcells’ services as head coach in 1997. As bad as the Patriots were before Parcells, the Jets were even worse. The Jets had not only struggled to win the division, but they hadn’t had a winning record since they went 10-6 in 1986, a decade earlier. In the three seasons before the Jets traded for Parcells, they won a combined ten games. In Parcells’ first year as their coach, he almost matched that total with nine wins. The year after that, the Jets won 12 games and the division. After an 8-8 season, Parcells decided to retire for the second time. The Jets won as many games during Parcells’ three seasons as they had in the six before.
Parcells would be lured out of retirement yet again in 2003, this time by Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys. Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin had retired, and Emmitt Smith was a shadow of his former self. The Cowboys had finished 5-11 three years in a row, and hadn’t sniffed a winning record since 1998. In his first year at the helm, Parcells took the Cowboys back to the playoffs with a 10-6 record. The next year, the Cowboys would go 6-10 and struggle to a close, but the next two years he would eke out nine wins a season. More important than the year they made the playoffs was the discovery of undrafted Eastern Illinois quarterback, Tony Romo, who now holds most of Dallas’ passing records, including yards and touchdowns in a career.
But Parcells wasn’t done with football yet. After the Miami Dolphins finished 1-15 in 2007, they reached out for Parcells to become their Executive Vice President of Football Operations. As Vice President, Parcells would immediately fire the general manager, Randy Mueller, as well as head coach, Cam Cameron, and his entire coaching staff. Parcells would go on to cut dead weight like Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor, trading the latter away for a second round pick. The following season, the Dolphins would go 11-5, becoming the only team other than New England to win the division since the Jets team that he built went 9-7 in 2002.
Parcells found success everywhere he went during his time in the NFL, regardless of how bad a team was before he got there. He helped change the way teams played defense with the Giants in the 80’s, he changed the landscape of the AFC playoff picture moving into the 2000’s, and he stumbled upon one of the best quarterbacks in the league with the Cowboys. He took the Dolphins from a one win team to a playoff team without calling a single play. But ultimately, Parcells’ impact on the game of football wasn’t only on his players.
Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, and Sean Payton were all disciples of Bill Parcells that went on to not only become head coaches, but win Super Bowls during the 2000’s. Payton, Coughlin, and Belichick have combined to win seven of the last seventeen Super Bowls. Even at the collegiate level, another branch of the Parcells tree, Nick Saban, has won five national championships, one with LSU, and another four with Alabama. Beyond that, Tony Sparano, Todd Haley, Romeo Crennel, Bobby Petrino, Steve Spagnuolo, Josh McDaniels, Eric Mangini, Jim Schwartz, and Dick Jauron are all also members of the Bill Parcells coaching tree who have gone on to become coaches in the NFL. If the simplest responsibility of a coach is to be a teacher, it appears that Bill Parcells was quite the educator.
After 31 years, 303 wins, four teams, five division championships, three conference championships, two Super Bowl wins, and one hall of fame induction, Bill Parcells has cemented his place among the greatest coaches in NFL history. No matter where he went, he found success, and his assistants followed suit. While no trophy is named after Parcells, there’s no question that he has changed the league, and that his presence is still being felt in the NFL today.
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