Assistants Update

Hey I am a big supporter of Parcells. I also hope he returns. I also hope he reups for a few more years.

I also hope he does what Alvarez in Wisconsin did with class and announce his leaving at the beginning of the year and not the end. They named the DC as the next head coach and look at how well that worked for Wisconsin. They beat a good Auburn team in a BCS bowl. Alvarez got to say goodbye and move up to AD after turning around a Big 10 program. Hech of a coach and a class act. Bill stiffed Tampa Bay which put them in the awkward position of trading for Gruden. I think he would like to go out on top and leave the Cowboys on top. He also relishes watching his understudies succeed. Even if he and lil Bill don’t talk. Hey Bill go out with class big man.

Bill Parcells should do the same and I know it has not been his starting the rumors…….and at his age he can and should consider retirement. However I don’t want it entering every last few weeks and playoffs. Imagine if we get to the Super Bowl. There will be more talk about the ole ball coach walking away then the players and teams playing. No tearful goodbyes ala Dicky V.

Payton can go or stay, but Zimmer should be kept. If he knew when Parcells was leaving and if Jerry offered him the job I think he would stay. Zim had been singled out as a DC on the hot seat cuz of the switch to the 3-4 fulltime something he never coached. I think he looks a lot more the part of head coach than Payton or Dave Campo also known as Mr Magoo and the 2nd worst Cowboys coach of all time behind Switzer mr 501. Maybe I am wrong but I would say what he managed this year was at least as good as what Greg Williams did in DC and they sowed him up. Give Williams as many rookies as we have on defense and see how well he does.

I think Herm Edwards rumors of leaving affected the Jets, how can it not be a distraction for the team. Bill owes it to his players and the organization to do it right like Alvarez.

Rafael

Did you read the Mike Fisher piece today? Ouch!

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=citadel-2_485690_112&prov=citadel&type=story

Fisher is a tool.

Don’t shoot the messenger. Fisher is certainly telling only one side of the story. But, some of his facts are correct. BP is a .500 coach during his tenure with the ’Boys. BP does have a history of leaving his employer and players guessing. The teams that are good year after year have continuity at the top. (Steelers, Pats come to mind) If he plans to stay, just say so. The good free agents are watching, his two assistants are watching, and his own free agents are watching. He owes this organization certainty one way or the other. We, the fans, pay his fat salary and we deserve the same accountability to which he holds everyone else.

StarStruck,

Fisher wishes he was closer to the story. .. If you can’t understand Parcells’ “in between”, then you are not quite human. The man likes his players and likes his team and feels obligated to finish what he has started, but totally understands that the stress of football, plus life’s situations, plus the countless hours he puts in are taxing him and his 60+ year old body. .. If I were Parcells, I would think heavily about hiring a right hand man, kind of like Joe Torry did when he hired Don Zimmer as his bench coach. It might help to have a confidant, a friend if you will, on the sidelines with him. Some one with expierence around Parcell’s age to work matters through with would lessen the stress. .. But lets all be real here too, Parcells hasn’t said anything about retiring. The guy deserves to be tired after a very emotional season, and I am sure that it is idiots like Fisher that make his job even more stressful. .. Fisher wants to equate this to real terms, comparing it to a marriage. Well what if you were resonably happily married and every time an issue arose your neighbor comes to you and asks, “Are you leaving your wife?” He might get a pass the first time or so, but after that it becomes very annoying. After the 3rd time or so you start becoming nasty, and use curse words to shake him off. Its around the 5th time you would like to punch the idiot in the face. .. At some point the Mike Fishers of the world are going to be right (Parcells will retire someday), and I’m quite sure after being wrong 100 times, they will let everyone know that this one time (which was inevitable) they were right. .. Parcells is in the middle of converting the Cowboys to a 3-4 defense, and at the same time is probably exhausted …. all I can say is I hope he gets some time to relax a little, enjoy life, and catch up with his family. I am quite sure that if he does those things he will find the right answer. Jerry Jones is doing the right thing by letting Parcells know that he appreciates him and wants him as his coach. .. Hopefully by now his scouting team knows enough about what type of players to look for to fit the 3-4. If they put in their own countless hours in, then the draft and the offseason should be a little easier for the Tuna.

StarStruck,

Parcells has a history of jerking his teams around. And I don’t doubt that he’s a prima donna and does some unnecessary things. And Fisher is right, I believe, about Jimmy’s departure. He pushed Jerry to axe him as much as Jerry pushed him out.

That said, Fisher doesn’t answer the core question: why does Parcells have to bully Jerry? He seems to have gotten everything he wants so far. Fisher claims he’s angling for more money and an extension. From what I’ve read, he’s already had those things offered to him.

He won the philosophical tug of war to go to 3-4. He got his QB. He has a new personnel man he likes a thousand times better than Larry Lacewell. He’s hired every assistant himself. What’s left?

I don’t doubt he talks to Chris Motensen, but Fisher doesn’t explain who initiated the calls. Parcells may have done this. He’s done it before. But that’s not confirmation.
If he’s the guy who called Detroit, it’s easy enough to prove. Review the phone bills and fire Parcells if you can prove it. I don’t see Dallas moving in that direction. He seems to argue that Parcells is going to screw Dallas because Jimmy screwed Dallas. That’s possible, but one does not follow from the other.

But all I see once you get past the bluster is that he’s pissed off a lot of “staffers” at Valley Ranch and they’re lashing out in this column.

As for the Maurice Carthon anecdote, Carthon goes from being part of an offensive three-headed monster, where Payton gets passing game input and Parcells calls the plays to being in total control of Cleveland’s offense, with a fellow assistant in Romeo Crennel that he knows well. That’s a stepping stone to a HC job and Carthon is already getting HC interviews just one year on. How is that a “lateral” move?

Raf,

You make the point: Parcells has everything he has asked for.

I believe last season and the year before, it was writers like Fisher attempting to CREATE the stories of how Parcells and Jones were at each other’s throats behind the scenes. How Parcells wanted to draft this guy and that guy, but Jones overrided him and selected his guy. They told STORIES of the two bickering over personel and power. Was this true? No!! Time told the TRUE story. Parcells is/was making the final decisions. He got Keyshawn, he got Richie Anderson, Aaron and Terri Glenn, Bledsoe, the 3-4 … on and on and on. This is Parcells team!

.. I don’t think Fisher and all the other writers who reported this ever apologized for being ABSOLUTELY 100% WRONG for that!! But the they will continue to write 1/2 baked FAIRY TALES. .. Fisher sounds like a bitter writer wishing he was closer to the true story. Anyone can get 1/2 the story and make up the other 1/2 to sell the story. Look at Skip Bayless, he is on ESPN everyday! .. When you have a “story” you have to consider the source, and Fisher and his pundants aren’t reliable.

Hey, look at it this way…if Parcells were to go to Detroit (I give it a .01% chance) the Cowboys would have to get draft picks from Detroit in return. Bottom line…it ain’t gonna happen…it’s just media-driven drama.

Also, Jon…I know you think Switzer is the worst Cowboys coach ever, I have heard you say it before…but you are flat-out wrong, he won a Super Bowl and has the second highest winning percentage of any Cowboys coach. Chan Gailey and Dave Campo were the worst, no question about it. The numbers and titles don’t lie. And before you even try to say it…NO neither of those guys could have coached that team to a Super Bowl win, neither won titles at ANY level of coaching. Get real!!

Sterling,

I agree with Jon, Switzer was a joke. A JOKE!!! He ran on the field after that no call on Deion in the NFC Championship Game, which cost us a chance at 4 in a row. Then he brought a shotgun to the airport, like a doof, right in the middle of a bunch of off field contrevesy. But to top it all off he called the same exact play on 4th and 1 against Philly. After the first time it got stuffed, couldn’t he get a clue? … ANYTHING he won in Dallas was due to what Jimmy and Jerry had built together. … He was a goof.

Sterling….

Barry Switzer was called the 501. Not by me…..but by everybody in the media Oklahoma and Texas. Cuz it was assumed there were 500 coaches that could have led the Cowboys with all that talent to the their third title in 3 years.

Switzer was 501. The guy that couldn’t!

He ran a corrupt program at OU that produced the likes of Bosworth? His programs were so much better than everybody else…….he deserves credit for what he did in college. However he took over a Cowboys program did not bring any of his own crew and only lasted 3 years.

If he was so great why did he resign? Dave Campo was bad. Chan was like Norv Turner a decent OC or college coach nothing more. Jerry could have hired Tuna……hech Norv had just run off he could have taken us back to the bowl.

Switzer to this day does not even know he was the head coach of the Cowboys…..he just keeps thanking Jerry Jones for the great seats!!!! His college coaching was impressive. But he gets ZERO credit for the Cowboys.

Eric R:

He’s got a Super Bowl ring…and teams don’t just coach themselves. The NFC Championship was blown in the offseason when the 49ers signed every good FA defensive player available (including OUR MLB Ken Norton Jr.), and including Deion, while JJ stayed pat and didn’t upgrade the Cowboys at all that offseason. The game was sealed when we fumbled a kickoff and put ourselves in the hole against a VERY good SF team on the road. That had nothing to do with Switzer, playcalling, coaching, any of it. A player fumbling a kick return was simply a case of a PLAYER screwing up and choking big time in a big game. You act like the 49ers were just a bunch of unmotivated has-beens who got lucky to beat the defending Champs that year. They were hungry and they were VERY good. At least three HOF or future HOF players were on that team, and they all wanted it BAD.

So what if he called the same play on 4th and 1 against Philly?!?! Like Jimmy Johnson, Tom Landry and even Vince Lombardi never ran the exact same play on 4th and 1 and slammed it through the next play for a first down or a TD? It happens all the time. Look at Pete Carroll last night on 4th and 2!! Is he a bad coach because of that? Dude, 4th and 1 is about EXECUTION…not playcalling!! Maybe 3rd and 2 or 2nd and 4 is about playcalling…BUT NOT 4th and 1!! 4th and 1 is about slamming it down their throat for 1 damn yard!! Give me a break!!

Saying Jimmy and Jerry won the Super Bowl Switzer won is like saying that Tony Dungy won the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay a few of years back, or that Pete Carroll won the Patriots Super Bowls for them. Jon Gruden did not do hardly anything to upgrade the Bucs and HE won the Super Bowl, not Dungy. Belichick won those Super Bowls, not Pete Carroll or BP (who both drafted most of the players on that team).

BTW – The only other name I remember hearing about after Jimmy Johnson and JJ had their falling out was Lou Holtz. Are you going to tell me that Lou Holtz would have made a better Cowboys coach than Switzer? For the last time: Switzer won the SUPER BOWL. Switzer has the 2nd best winning percentage in Cowboys history. Switzer took the team to the playoffs 3 out of 4 years and to the NFC Championship 2 of those years. The team would have gone down because of the salary cap, free agency, injuries to key players, and retirements ANYWAY…even if Tom Landry had been the coach!! Switzer came in and did his job…he won a Super Bowl and a hell of a lot of games. Jimmy Johnson was long gone when Switzer took the team to the Super Bowl and won.

While I also think that Switzer was a bad coach, just one with a great team, I also think that Campo wasn’t as bad a coach as his record would seem to indicate, he was a Defense oriented HC that made his Defense rank consistently in the Top 10, even when his Defense had lots of holes. His Offense was in a worst boat, he didn’t had the luxury of Irvin, he lost Aikman in his first season, he lost 2 1st Rounders with the Galloway signing, he didn’t had a consistent Offensive Coordinator and he had Jerry doing the Drafts, so he wasn’t a mess after all.

Jon Barlett:

I could care less about the nicknames the mediots gave Switzer…he wears a Super Bowl ring and they don’t. There aren’t 500 coaches or even 1 that could have coached that team to a win in Candlestick Park over a hungry and talented 49ers team after spotting them 21 points in the first quarter.

So Switzer was to blame for Aikman throwing an INT that got returned for a TD and our kick returner fumbling the kickoff on the next play? Give me a BREAK!!

Did you even watch that game? How are those 14 points Switzer’s fault at all? And don’t tell me “he didn’t prepare them enough before the game”. A Super Bowl MVP QB and a two time defending Super Bowl Champion team doesn’t need any coach to prepare them not to throw INT’s returned for TD’s and fumble kickoffs in the first 5 minutes of a Championship game!!

Also, don’t act like losing Ken Norton Jr. that year wasn’t HUGE. He was on of the team leaders and a great MLB. Switzer had nothing to do with that decision.

Having read Fishers article……i agree and disagree. He spins it……but in the end I will stand by what I said…..act like Alvarez at Wisconsin go out right. This is it……or so you say. So do it right with no regrets!!!

Switzer is not worth my time. I could not believe Jerry went to his buddy from Arkansas. Why? Cuz of the timing of Jerrys retirement and Norv and Wanstedt rushing off to other gigs. His staff had already been depleted so he asked his friend to come watch the game from the sidelines. That is about all Barry ever did.

If Barry is so great how come we never hear his name mentioned in any other NFL opening???? Nuff said!!!

The Parcells-to-Detroit rumor is completely a product of Matt Millen’s wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that Parcells would entertain such a move, where he would have to start all over, building his staff and building his team from the ground up, all when he is three years older than when he started with the Cowboys.

Really, what would he have to work with if he went to Detroit? They have no quarterback. Their receivers are high-priced underachievers, who can’t stay healthy. Their offensive line needs to be rebuilt. Their defense sucks, with only a couple of players worth keeping — maybe only Shaun Rogers. Why would Bill Parcells want to take on that task at his age, when the one he started here is not complete?

Jon:

I agree…complaining about Cowboys coaches who won the Super Bowl is not worth anyone’s time.

I am sure you could have thought of 500 better coaches who would have overcome PLAYERS choking in SF that year.

You either have a short memory or you didn’t watch the playoffs very closely that season, because Jimmy Johnson didn’t call that huge pass play to Alvin Harper against the Packers in the playoffs. That would have been Switzer. At least give him credit for what he did right!! Also, since Turner and Wannstedt had left, he didn’t have assistants who had been there. That meant he had to manage new guys with little experience in their roles.

The reason Barry didn’t pursue any other NFL jobs is because he was already over 60 and had nothing more to prove. Why would he want to go coach another team? Just to prove to haters like you that he could coach? That’s not his style. He’s one of only two coaches to ever win it all at both the NCAA and NFL level.

It seems like nothing he could have done would have made you happy. If he had won 3 or 4 in a row you still would be saying that it was because of Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones. You act like any ole coach could have overcome losing all those free agents, losing Haley, Moose, Novacek to injury, and drafting at the bottom every year because of having a good record. Jimmy couldn’t have built that team if he hadn’t had HIGH draft picks from TERRIBLE seasons and a player like Herschel Walker to trade for tons more picks. Switzer had none of that. He had to draft 25th thru 28th every year practically with JJ looking over his shoulder.

Get some persepective, dude.

Jon:

If you couldn’t believe Jerry went to his buddy from Arkansas you must have really been coming UNGLUED when JJ hired Jimmy Johnson (aka – buddy from Arkansas) right after firing Tom Landry (aka – Hall Of Fame, two time Super Bowl Champion Coach, took Cowboys to Super Bowl 5 times, only coach of Cowboys).

Sterling,

YOU get some perspective! … Switzer ran unto the field and drew a 15 yard penalty which took the Cowboys out of at least field goal range only down by 10 points. That directly effected the outcome because Dallas, after trailing 21-0, had all the momentum at that point in the game. And after beating the 9ers the two previous years, Dallas’ stigma had to be weighing on the 49ers too. If Dallas scores, even just a FG, the pressure would have been on BIG TIME!!!

You are so smart Sterling, answer this:
Name one other, just 1, coach that has drawn a 15 yard penalty in the middle of a Championship Game? .. You can’t cause there is only one … Barry Switzer!! .. He is a JOKE!!

EricR:

We didn’t lose that game because of that 15-yard penalty!! Since YOU are so smart, can you count? We lost by 10 points…we gave up 14 in the span of about 90 seconds…NONE of which had ANYTHING to do with Switzer. An INT returned for a TD and a fumbled kickoff return!! How do you blame the coach for that? EVEN if we had got 7 out of that drive where Switzer ran out and yelled at the officials over that TERRIBLE pass interference that the refs should have called…that STILL isn’t 10 points. You don’t what might have happened, we might have turned it over again or missed a field goal. Either way, that play wasn’t what decided that game. All your psychology about how the 49ers were going to fold if we scored that drive is silly. They were hungry, and they got EVERY break that day. We should have never been 21 points down after 5 minutes in the first quarter anyway!!

You are blaming a penalty that occurred on a drive when we were already TWO SCORES down for losing a game where TWO costly turnovers for TOUCHDOWNS were CLEARLY the reason we lost. Are you saying that YOU weren’t jumping up and down and screaming about the officiating on that play? I was mad as hell!! Deion obviously interfered on that play!! They called Larry Brown for the SAME EXACT THING that game!!

Complain about the officiating if anything. The refs were a JOKE!!

The MF story is a joke..no sources and now we are down to “the staff” having
complaints about BP.Not players or coaches mind you!What next the lawn crew?Or how about some delivery guy or maybe the janitors are upset because BPs yelled because someone forgot to empty his waste basket?
This is the same moron who" broke" the
supposed story about Ellis/parcells arguing over his role inthe 3-4 of course he cited no sources again and it was 3 months after it “supposedly”
happened.Maybe if the “staff”(who actually work for JJ)have such a problem with B.P. why don’t they just
go work some place else???

Sterling…….what are you Switzer’s arkansas drinking buddy. Give it a rest. Barry is 501.

Jimmy was coaching the hurricanes when he was hired. Switzer was drinking cocktails….not sure he ever stopped.

Jimmy made sure the Dallas Cowboys and the SF 49ers knew who was the better team and had the brass balls to say it prove and then produce em. The Cowboys were brash and confident and well prepared.

I think you will find a multitude of people who think Dallas was the better team that year. We won in 95 without Norton? Sure we were losing players all the time……so is any team that goes to the Super Bowl.

What input did Switzer have on those less than stellar drafts? Look I blame Jones too for hiring him. We had enough talent with the right coach we could have gotten back to the bowl. Gailey wasted our last years changing th offense…….Swtizer was the WORST coach to team with Pro Bowl Troy Aikman. I am sure you are aware of their history.

I respect what Switzer did at OU. I think the program was probably not as clean as it is today…..but then I am sure programs in Nebraska, Miami, USC had similar problems. It was college football then. He won a few national championships. Great. However, he did not recruit, draft, or teach the Cowboys during his tenure……and players from that time have said as much. He was merely a bystander watching the Boys win another one. “Thanks for the great seats Jerry…..see ya next year.” It was the beginning of the end for the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty. Zimmer came to the team I think then, but I don’t know if Jerry or Barry did that. At either rate I will give Switzer credit for bringing in a good secondary coach, who became a DC and eventually a HC. So there……something good from the Switzer era.

Now look at what Bellichek is continuing in New England. Granted JJ left, that was he and Jerry’s deal. Nonetheless it is only so often you get the combo of talent had on both sides of the ball. Better coaching from Switzer and Gailey and we would have had another bowl.

Jon:

Why don’t YOU give a rest? You go around spouting off about how bad Switzer was and then can’t back any of it up with any facts.

No, I’m not his drinking buddy. I think that used to be Jerry Jones though. That would have been right after Jerry and Jimmy had their drinks at the hotel a few nights before and Jimmy ended up walking out the door on a 2 time Super Bowl Champion team that he assembled. Just out of curiosity…who do you blame for that?

I guess you would have been happier if we had just let the team coach itself after Jimmy left? Perhaps one of your other 500 coaches (you are basically saying a high school coach would have been better than a 3 time NCAA Champion coach) would have prevented the INT and the fumble in the 1st Quarter against SF that year…but I doubt they would have even got the team that far.

I also think we were the better team that year, no question in my mind, but when you turn the ball over twice for touchdowns on the road in a Championship game against a great team you can’t expect to win. My point wasn’t that SF was a better team than us, just that they were VASTLY improved from the previous two years and we weren’t as good as the team that we had on the field the year before. Neither of which were Switzer’s fault.

We had enough talent, but the rest of the league was catching up fast. Switzer had to deal with free agents, retirements, injuries to KEY players, and drafting at the bottom every year he was there. What coach would have been able to overcome that? Not one of your supposed 500.

From reading the things you have said about Switzer it is obvious that you have some emotional dislike for him that no amount of facts will overcome. You don’t like him because you don’t like him, and because it has now reached some level of folk mythology that he destroyed a dynasty. In reality it would have happened NO MATTER WHO WAS THE COACH.

You blame JJ for hiring a 3 time NCAA Champion football coach, who DID WIN a Super Bowl his second year, and twist that into speculating that Jimmy could have beat the 49ers even though the players turned the ball over, and Jimmy would have prevented players from getting old and retiring, and Jimmy would have been drafting studs from the 28 spot, and of course if Jimmy had just been there Haley, Novacek, and Moose wouldn’t have gotten injured. You probably think Jimmy would have followed Erik Williams and Michael Irvin around in the offseason like their mom and stopped them from getting in trouble too.

You live in fantasy land. What happened to the team was going to happen no matter WHO the coach was.

I like Jimmy Johnson. I like Tom Landry. I like Barry Switzer. Why? Because each of those men coached this team to Super Bowl victories!! I don’t blame Landry for the late 80’s, and I don’t blame Jimmy for the 1-15 season. It happens. It’s the NFL. Every team has gone through it. What all three of those men have done is something only THEY have accomplished. I don’t think you realize how hard it is to be an NFL coach, let alone coach a team to a Super Bowl victory. I bet a LOT of the Cowboys players who played in 1995 would give Switzer credit for that Super Bowl. I also doubt if you’d hear ANY 49ers players or coaches say that the only reason they beat the Cowboys in that Championship game was because of Coach Switzer.

Let’s give this whole topic a rest. You obviously need to have a goat to point the finger of blame at, even for things that were out of his control. Any one of 500 other coaches would be your goat right now…except the owner didn’t think enough of them or their achievements to offer them the job in the first place.

BTW, changing the subject, isn’t it at least interesting to think that if Zimmer gets the St. Louis job he would be again in a 4-3 scheme and one that’s a little pourous, if you take their whole season as evidence not just the Dallas game. St. Louis has the 11th pick and Zimmer knows what Ellis and Glover have still on their tanks, if he offers their high 2nd Rounder and maybe a 5th for both, I, at least, would be tempted.

Chandus:

Interesting scenario…that assumes they hire Zimmer and that they also give him GM powers too. Obviously they have to build their defense because it sucks. Maybe having Ellis, Glover, and Coakley reunited can help. They’d probably do better with veterans than rookies since their offense is already built to win now.

BTW – Thanks for changing the subject. Dwelling on the past and blaming people based on speculation about what others supposedly could have done is a negative topic. I prefer to give credit for successful achievements and concentrate on future successes.

Sterling:
It’s a pleasure, that was getting awful…

They wouldn’t have to give Zimmer GM powers to do so, a Head Coach can ask for something that he would like to have in his team, I mean they have Little on one side and a guy in the other at DE and at DT they have Jimmy Kennedy and next to him a guy, add Ellis and Glover with just 1 2nd rounder and a 5th, and they have a much better DLine. And Zimmer knows them, so he would know what to do with them.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want Zimmer out of town, just as I want Ellis and Glover to still be in the team for next season, but I can live if they’re gone, especially with that additional 2nd rounder.

Chandus,

I think you’re underestimating the value of quality d-linemen. Dallas could probably get a high two just for Glover. Is Ellis worth just a 5th to you? Even with his cap friendly contract. That would make him more valuable in my book.

Rafael:
How much years does the Glover deal still has? They’re both over 30 and we already have evidence that they can’t hold the starting duties for the whole season, those are all facts that bring their trade value down. And yes, after seeing them play for all the seasons they’ve been playing I know they worth more, and much more, but I don’t think we’re going to be offered more, because I don’t believe that Jerry’s going to pay those roster bonuses, so instead of not getting nothing in return for waiving them, I’m cutting the loses.