One amusing nugget:
Parcells is the Man Behind The Curtain in Miami. He has what might be the greatest job in the history of sports. He gets to run an NFL franchise with all of the fun and none of the nonsense. He lives on the beach, makes $4 million per year, enjoys total autonomy, and doesn’t have to talk to the media.
Just a few minor edits, and behold:
Shaughnessy is the Man on Morrissey Boulevard. He has what might be the greatest job in the history of newspapers. He gets to write a major sports column whenever he damn well feels like it with all of the fun and none of the nonsense. He lives in Newton, MA, makes six figures per year, enjoys total autonomy, and doesn’t have to talk to athletes.
Do you think Shank wrote his paragraph with any feeling of self-awareness?
who is this "Shank" that you speak of?
ReplyDeleteShank falls for the Al From Everett myth about Parcells. The Cowboys record is typical of Parcells - 32-32 with the Patriots (he's behind Belichick, Raymond Berry, Pete Carroll, Chuck Fairbanks, Ron Meyer, and Mike Holovak in team winning percentage), 28-20 with the Jets, 34-32 with the Cowboys, currently 14-10 with the Dolphins. And since leaving the Giants Parcells was 3-5 in the playoffs and currently 0-1 in the playoffs as Dolphins GM.
ReplyDelete"New England was a joke before Parcells." Not quite - the Kiam years were a disaster but some respectability began coming back with Dick MacPherson (his 1991 draft seeded Parcells' squad with players such as Ben Coates and Leonard Russell).
People talk about Parcells and his ability to "rebuild" teams - but the fact is he only goes to situations he knows are good (that's why he stiffed the Falcons and twice stiffed the Bucs, both of whom eventually became competitive teams anyway) so he can get the credit and the fawners in the press go out of their way to avoid assigning blame to him - notice how seemingly no one points out his poor playoff record post-Giants or the general mediocrity of his teams - Drew Bledsoe took Parcells to the Superbowl, not the other way around; Vinny Testaverde took him and the Jets to the AFC Title game and they collapsed (as the Jets are wont to do) when he tore his achilles; Quincy Carter turned out to be his best Cowboys quarterback; the present Dolphins do not have a real offense - in Sunday's game they managed one touchdown drive because they abandoned the Wildcat and simply used Pat White instead of Chad Henne as the quarterback, and in the end they couldn't win.
94-84 isn't a bad record, but it doesn't warrant kiss-up jobs like Shank's piece.