Parcells' Moaning is Fans' Best Medicine
By Jim Reeves, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Sep. 19--For those of you who are preparing your get-well cards for Big Bill, or planning on sending flowers to Valley Ranch this week, you might hold off on those arrangements. He's feeling much better already.
Yes, he looked a bit pale late Sunday night. He had bags the size of storage trunks under his eyes. As nauseated as he obviously was, I worried about the safety of those reporters in the front row at his postgame news conference.
"I just want my team to play better," Parcells moaned. "It's hard on me. I'm telling you, it really is. I feel ill right now."
Congratulations, Big Bill, it's only Week 2 and you've already won the Jimmy Johnson "Poor Me" Award, hands down.
Hearing Big Bill moan and groan after a 27-10 victory over the rival Redskins is the best dose of good news Cowboys' fans could have hoped for.
No more panic in the streets. No jumping off tall buildings or frantic phone calls to crisis hot lines. The 'Boys are back and there's no greater evidence of that than a head coach refusing to immediately acknowledge the luster of a 17-point victory.
They're all alike, these guys, or at least the good ones are.
You can always be sure that they'll be full of doom and gloom after a key victory and unreasonable defensive optimism after a big loss.
That was certainly always Jimmy's M.O.
The Cowboys would win and we'd walk in for Jimmy's postgame news conference and find him in the foulest mood possible.
He would invariably point out every mistake his team made and, sooner rather than later, feign indignation at some inoffensive question and storm back to the locker room.
Now did he learn that from Parcells, vice versa, or is this just a basic tenet -- the Golden Rule, maybe -- of the head-coaching handbook?
Thou Shalt Not Enjoy Winning. Period.
Now, before we poke too much fun at Big Bill, it's important to note that he really was feeling physically ill by the time the game ended, and the penalties and drops weren't totally responsible.
He said he made the mistake of wearing a rain jacket for a time, which caused him to sweat profusely and become dehydrated.
"I'm feeling less ill now," Parcells said at his day-after news conference Monday. "It wasn't a good set of circumstances for me last night. I made a mistake that I know better than to do. I wound up paying for it a little bit.
"I don't know what all the contributing factors were, but it was a confluence of them."
Penalties, plus drops, plus electrolyte imbalance equals a very ill Bill.
"I've been through this before a couple of times," he said, "but I wasn't taking that rain jacket off because we were winning. That shows you how warped I am."
I guarantee you Jimmy would have done the same thing.
After watching the tape, Parcells saw that most of the penalties were because of aggressiveness and that many of the drops were by the Cowboys' most reliable receivers, something you wouldn't expect to continue.
Of course, maybe Parcells was feeling sick because he understands, maybe better than most, that an idle t.o. might be the most dangerous t.o. of all.
A t.o. sitting at home, watching preseason games on TV is one thing. Having him bored and twiddling his thumbs once the regular season is under way is another. What's that old saying about idle hands being the devil's tools?
In this case, I'm a lot more worried about t.o.'s bored and babbling tongue than I am his hands.
Other than that, though, what does Parcells have to be so sick about?
Sure, there were too many penalties and all those dropped passes, but the Cowboys played well enough against the 'Skins that they didn't matter.
The offensive line was 10 times better than it was in Jacksonville, the defense was almost as dominating as we'd built it up to be before the season began, and Drew Bledsoe was able to once again lay a budding quarterback controversy to rest, at least temporarily, so no more questions about that for a couple of weeks.
Other good things happened, too. Philadelphia lost, so the Cowboys find themselves tied for first in the NFC East with the Eagles and the Giants. And, if I may be so bold as to look way down the line, Carolina, the favorite to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, is off to an 0-2 start.
Plus, the Cowboys have a bye week to fix some of their problems, almost two full weeks for t.o.'s broken finger to heal and their next game is at Tennessee, which was smashed 40-7 by the Chargers on Sunday.
Sick? Big Bill should be buying drinks for the house.
Allow me do the honors, Big Bill.
Bartender, a round of Pepto-Bismol on the rocks for everyone.
And keep 'em coming 'til I tell you to stop.
Sep. 19--For those of you who are preparing your get-well cards for Big Bill, or planning on sending flowers to Valley Ranch this week, you might hold off on those arrangements. He's feeling much better already.
Yes, he looked a bit pale late Sunday night. He had bags the size of storage trunks under his eyes. As nauseated as he obviously was, I worried about the safety of those reporters in the front row at his postgame news conference.
"I just want my team to play better," Parcells moaned. "It's hard on me. I'm telling you, it really is. I feel ill right now."
Congratulations, Big Bill, it's only Week 2 and you've already won the Jimmy Johnson "Poor Me" Award, hands down.
Hearing Big Bill moan and groan after a 27-10 victory over the rival Redskins is the best dose of good news Cowboys' fans could have hoped for.
No more panic in the streets. No jumping off tall buildings or frantic phone calls to crisis hot lines. The 'Boys are back and there's no greater evidence of that than a head coach refusing to immediately acknowledge the luster of a 17-point victory.
They're all alike, these guys, or at least the good ones are.
You can always be sure that they'll be full of doom and gloom after a key victory and unreasonable defensive optimism after a big loss.
That was certainly always Jimmy's M.O.
The Cowboys would win and we'd walk in for Jimmy's postgame news conference and find him in the foulest mood possible.
He would invariably point out every mistake his team made and, sooner rather than later, feign indignation at some inoffensive question and storm back to the locker room.
Now did he learn that from Parcells, vice versa, or is this just a basic tenet -- the Golden Rule, maybe -- of the head-coaching handbook?
Thou Shalt Not Enjoy Winning. Period.
Now, before we poke too much fun at Big Bill, it's important to note that he really was feeling physically ill by the time the game ended, and the penalties and drops weren't totally responsible.
He said he made the mistake of wearing a rain jacket for a time, which caused him to sweat profusely and become dehydrated.
"I'm feeling less ill now," Parcells said at his day-after news conference Monday. "It wasn't a good set of circumstances for me last night. I made a mistake that I know better than to do. I wound up paying for it a little bit.
"I don't know what all the contributing factors were, but it was a confluence of them."
Penalties, plus drops, plus electrolyte imbalance equals a very ill Bill.
"I've been through this before a couple of times," he said, "but I wasn't taking that rain jacket off because we were winning. That shows you how warped I am."
I guarantee you Jimmy would have done the same thing.
After watching the tape, Parcells saw that most of the penalties were because of aggressiveness and that many of the drops were by the Cowboys' most reliable receivers, something you wouldn't expect to continue.
Of course, maybe Parcells was feeling sick because he understands, maybe better than most, that an idle t.o. might be the most dangerous t.o. of all.
A t.o. sitting at home, watching preseason games on TV is one thing. Having him bored and twiddling his thumbs once the regular season is under way is another. What's that old saying about idle hands being the devil's tools?
In this case, I'm a lot more worried about t.o.'s bored and babbling tongue than I am his hands.
Other than that, though, what does Parcells have to be so sick about?
Sure, there were too many penalties and all those dropped passes, but the Cowboys played well enough against the 'Skins that they didn't matter.
The offensive line was 10 times better than it was in Jacksonville, the defense was almost as dominating as we'd built it up to be before the season began, and Drew Bledsoe was able to once again lay a budding quarterback controversy to rest, at least temporarily, so no more questions about that for a couple of weeks.
Other good things happened, too. Philadelphia lost, so the Cowboys find themselves tied for first in the NFC East with the Eagles and the Giants. And, if I may be so bold as to look way down the line, Carolina, the favorite to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, is off to an 0-2 start.
Plus, the Cowboys have a bye week to fix some of their problems, almost two full weeks for t.o.'s broken finger to heal and their next game is at Tennessee, which was smashed 40-7 by the Chargers on Sunday.
Sick? Big Bill should be buying drinks for the house.
Allow me do the honors, Big Bill.
Bartender, a round of Pepto-Bismol on the rocks for everyone.
And keep 'em coming 'til I tell you to stop.
posted by The Gryphon at 8:33 AM
<< Home