Bill Parcells held a press conference that was short on news and long on philosphy. It was more like Confucious holding court and explaining the NFL to the young grasshoppers. Classic Parcells tactic; when he's not interested in taking a lot of questions he tends to ramble on in his answers, giving the press some of his wisdom based on experience - or based on the teachings of Tony Larussa. So for aprroximately 20 minutes Bill talked and the press listened.
Here were the main points:
Parcells was asked about naming an offensive coordinator. This led to a long discussion about the experience level and job skills of Tony Sparano, Todd Haley and Chris Palmer. In the end Parcells wouldn't say much about who will call the plays and said that the offensive philosophy and teachings were a collective thing. Left unsaid was the fact that Parcells will be in charge of the offense.
Parcells was asked about Tony Romo and when will he make the next step forward. Parcells said he hopes it's this year, that Romo shows enough that Coach would be comfortable putting Romo in a game. He aslo said the way Romo has been brought along - not being thrown to the woulves right away - has been beneficial to Romo.
When asked why he didn't play him in blowout losses like the Redskins game last year, Parcells said it's his philosphy "to let the captain go down with the ship."
A reporter told Parcells that some of the players had said this team has "Super Bowl potential." What did he think about that? Parcells said let them put it on tape, let the fans, the opponents, the media the coaching staff all see it by putiing it on tape. Coach also said there's a little too much talking in pro football.
The Greg Ellis situation was brought up again. Parcells said in the 3-4 the linebackers are ususally the pressure players, but that Ellis has the ability to line up on the perimeter but still have the characteristics of a defensive lineman. They aren't turning Ellis into a stand-up LB, but they will use him in different ways.
The Tuna was asked if the LG position was an open competition. He said they signed Kosier to come in and play at the position. He needs to see some of the other guards in pre-season games to see what they've got. If someone else showed up big he would have to consider them, but right now Kosier's got the experience.
He was asked about Greg Ellis again. He launched into a long answer - not directed at Ellis - but to all players about not chasing stats to get more money. It's a trap for the team. He said he discourages contracts that have incentives built in based on stats like yards gained, sacks or anything like that. It's a team competition and said he went over this with the team during mini-camp.
The philosophical wisdom left behind by Parcells comes courtesy of Tony LaRussa. Work at your job or your craft, and the other things will fall into place for you.
That was basically the whole news conference.