Man in the middle is a rock

By MAC ENGEL
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

IRVING -- Bill Parcells is known to keep a baseball bat in his office to hit players.
Not literally. Just an expression. The prop is for certain players. Players he likes, sees something in, but ones that require a not-so-gentle lesson.
Nose tackle Jason Ferguson was one of those players.
"One swing and -- bam!" Parcells said. "Trust me, it might not have been a piece of wood, but he got hit with a bat."
Not this season. Not last season. But back in 1997, when Ferguson was a seventh-round draft pick in his first season under Parcells with the New York Jets. After a couple of bone-headed plays, Parcells told Ferguson that if he kept it up, he'd be back home in Mississippi.
"I called my mom and said, 'I don't think this guy likes me. I may be home real soon,'" Ferguson said. "I didn't know that when he's on you, he likes you."
Parcells has a tiny soft spot for the nose tackle whose T-shirts are size XXXXL. Especially today, for the Ferguson the Cowboys thought they signed in the 2005 off-season has shown up in 2006. Fully healthy and the main starter at nose tackle, Ferguson is the anchor of a run defense than ranks fourth in the NFL.
He leads Cowboys defensive linemen with 26 tackles, leads the team with three tackles for losses, and has a quarterback pressure and a pass defended.
Unlike last season when he played on a sprained ankle suffered in minicamp, he's fine now and able to throw around his 310-pound body. He also no longer has to split time with tackle La'Roi Glover, who signed with the St. Louis Rams in the off-season.
"First of all, La'Roi is good," Ferguson said. "He got paid for a reason. So there was that. I just couldn't get warm or into a rhythm."
Ferguson heard some of his critics who said that his 17 tackles and no sacks were a disappointment last season. He agrees.
But most of his coaches will agree that in this 3-4 defensive scheme, he's never going to amass Pro Bowl numbers of sacks, or any other statistic.
His value isn't measured in numbers.
"You see him, and guys aren't moving him at all. And he's usually getting hit by two, sometimes three linemen every snap," defensive end Chris Canty said. "When guys push on him, he doesn't move."
That is the player the Cowboys signed and the player Parcells knew from his days with the Jets.
Parcells speaks of Ferguson with a degree of admiration he usually reserves for former players. A player who came into the league as an immature low-level draft pick from Georgia who today has learned how to play, how to live, and how to manage himself. A player who has morphed into what he laughingly describes as an immature-mature veteran.
Maybe it's a coincidence, but the northeast corner of the Cowboys' locker room that houses 11 player stalls is basically a pack of kids making fun of each other, led by Ferguson. It's a group of mostly defensive linemen, linebacker DeMarcus Ware and veteran safety Marcus Coleman.
But Ferguson knows the difference between playing around and playing when it matters.
"It's something that we do. It's hard to explain," Canty said. "Without Ferg? It's hard to see us without him. The way we go about doing stuff, he makes coming in here fun for the guys."
Wait long enough and the booming laugh and a bit of a Mississippi drawl resonates before a chorus of laughter ensues. It's the surest sign Ferguson found his target.
"The guy will bust on anybody," rookie defensive end Jason Hatcher said.
Players. Coaches. Even Bill.
"I've got to be careful when I do that," Ferguson said. "Problem is, he'll bring stuff up from seven years ago just to shout you down."
Or hit him over the head with a bat.