Chris Palmer is now the QB coach in Dallas. His newest student is one of his old students, Drew Bledsoe. They both are under the watchful eye of Bill Parcells, again. Someone must've recently watched a DVD of The Blues Brothers and decided to put the band back together. Unfortunately, their ripping, funk-master bass player, Bill Belichick, started his own group and wasn't available.
People always call Parcells conservative, a 'three yards and a cloud of dust' type coach. Parcells counters that he coaches the best way for his team to win, and says he'll throw the ball if that's the best way to victory. He usually follows it up by challenging people to look at his years in New England. Challenge accepted.
Travel back to their glory days, 1993-1996, when at New England Parcells ran the show, Palmer was the wide receivers coach before becoming the QB coach, and Drew Bledsoe was slinging the football. Did they throw the ball? You bet, on record pace. You might've heard the stat that Drew Bledsoe still holds the record for passes attempted in a season, 691 attempts (about 43 passes per game), that was in 1994. When a Parcells, Palmer, Bledsoe triumvirate threw the ball 636 times in 1996 they all got a trip to the Super Bowl. In fact, they were trigger happy for three seasons in a row after Bledsoe's rookie campaign.
. Comp Att. Yards TD INT
1993 214 429 2494 15 15 (rookie year - 13 games)
1994 400 691 4555 25 27
1995 323 636 3507 13 16
1996 373 623 4086 27 15 (Super Bowl year)
So while I'm not expecting the Greatest Show on Turf to manifest itself in Big D, there is a precedent for these guys to throw caution to the wind and footballs into the wind. Put Flozell Adams at one end of the line and a decent right tackle at the other end and anything is possible. Could we actually see a more wide-open offense come 2006?