The angry head coach strode out of the office ahead of Kraft and Grier.
New England announced its selection of Ohio State’s Terry Glenn, to the surprise of those in the media who knew Parcells’s appetite for a defensive player. Embarrassed by the misinformation in his story, McDonough found Kraft in Foxboro Stadium and buttonholed him in an empty room. McDonough asked Kraft why he had lied to him, to which the owner claimed miscommunication. On the draft’s eve, however, Kraft had feared that McDonough would relay the organization’s true intentions to Parcells, risking a leak to another team targeting Glenn. Despite McDonough’s closeness to Kraft, the owner knew that the Boston Globe sportswriter and Parcells shared a brotherly bond.
In the draft’s aftermath, the owner contemplated firing his head coach, who himself was considering quitting. Each man blamed the other for his unhappiness. Still, with less than a year left of coexisting, neither acted on his inclination. In late April, ESPN reported on Parcells’s shortened contract, increasing speculation about his status beyond 1996.
Until the draft Parcells had been reticent with his coaches on specific issues involving Kraft, but during a staff meeting Parcells told them that Kraft’s switcheroo was planned in such a way as to humiliate him. Believing that Kraft and his son Jonathan had taken pleasure in it, Parcells vowed to never forget. The episode also damaged the friendship between Kraft and McDonough, who would give the owner the silent treatment for the next three months.
At a golf club in 1994, Will McDonough had introduced Parcells to his best friend, Joe O’Donnell, a prominent entrepreneur whose main business involved the sale of food in stadiums. As a cub reporter covering high schools in the 1960s, McDonough had selected O’Donnell for the Boston Globe’s All-State team in football and baseball. Entering Harvard College in 1964, O’Donnell was the Ivy League school’s top player in those sports, and on graduating he was hired as baseball manager of the Crimson. He earned an MBA at Harvard Business School before taking the leap to become its dean. Stepping down in 1976, O’Donnell started a culinary business that expanded into a major food-service corporation, making him one of Boston’s wealthiest men.
He was also one of its best connected. O’Donnell’s close friends included Mitt Romney, the CEO of leading private-equity firm Bain Capital, and Wayne Huizenga, the Dolphins billionaire owner whose stadium served the concessionaire’s products. Meeting New England’s legendary coach through McDonough didn’t faze O’Donnell. After playing several holes of golf, the threesome ate lunch. Parcells ordered a salad with grilled chicken, O’Donnell a hot-fudge sundae. Staring at the ice cream, Parcells scolded him. “What the hell is wrong with you? What are you eating that for? That’s not good for you. You shouldn’t be eating that.”
O’Donnell scoffed. “You’re not serious, are you? You didn’t get to be six hundred pounds by eating salad. You must be a serial closet eater. They shouldn’t call you the Tuna; they should call you the Whale.”
Despite the rapid-fire zingers, or perhaps because of them, O’Donnell and Parcells hit it off. “From that moment,” O’Donnell recalls in his thick Bostonian accent, “we’ve been friends, because he’s my kind of guy.” Their relationship, based on frankness, flourished enough for the food mogul to quickly join Parcells’s normally closed circle.
A few weeks after the 1996 NFL draft, O’Donnell, Parcells, and McDonough met for golf at Oyster Harbors, a gated community on Cape Cod. Heavy rain postponed play, so they ate lunch at the clubhouse, where talk turned to the Patriots and Kraft. Among his pals, Parcells spoke freely. “I don’t want any more to do with this guy, but here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to get in the greatest shape of my life. I’ve already started to lose weight. And I’m not leaving here with a 6-10 record. I’m going to come back and prove I’m better than that.
“I did a lousy job; I know that. But next season we’ve got a chance to be pretty good. I’m going to have as little to do with this guy as I can, and focus on coaching the team. Then when it’s over, I’m out of here. I’m going to retire. This will be my last year coaching.”
The Big Tuna shed twenty-five pounds by the opening of training camp, but the slimmed-down version had lost none of his bite. Terry Glenn pulled a hamstring in the first week of practice, and while New England’s top pick missed every preseason game because of the injury, Parcells described it to the media as a mild strain. Then, during his daily Q&A at Foxboro Stadium in late August, one reporter asked for an update on Glenn. Smiling, Parcells responded, “She’s making progress.” Laughter from the all-male reporters filled the interview room.
Such zingers from Parcells were par for the course, especially with rookies, but his power struggle with New England’s owner had heightened sensitivity about Glenn’s situation. After hearing about the jab, Kraft, prodded by his wife, Myra, scolded Parcells in private before following up with a public rebuke on August 27.
“That’s not the standard we want to set; that’s not the way we do things,” Kraft told reporters. Then, in a veiled allusion to his head coach’s future, he added, “There was a player last year who gave the finger to the crowd. He’s not here anymore.”
Parcells’s political incorrectness notwithstanding, Glenn was intent on winning over his coach and erasing any doubts about his toughness. The rookie missed New England’s season opener, a 24–10 loss at Miami, before making his NFL debut in the next game at Buffalo. With the Patriots down 10–3 in the third quarter, Glenn dove for a 37-yard touchdown reception. Snagging passes in traffic and over the middle, he finished with six receptions totaling 76 yards in a promising performance. However, the Patriots lost, 17–10, an inauspicious sequel to their season-opening loss.
Soon Parcells’s status as Patriots head coach triggered another payment due from the $900,000 originally agreed upon for his marketing rights, before the balance had been reduced by $300,000 in exchange for his 1997 departure. So Parcells telephoned Kraft to inquire about getting the final $300,000 sooner than the September 1997 date on their initial payment schedule. But after apparently doing some contractual gymnastics involving Parcells’s future status, Kraft refused to pay the remaining monies at all. He contended that voiding 1997 in Parcells’s employment contract essentially negated the remaining amount due.
Outraged by Kraft’s logic, Parcells went to the law office of Joe Kozol, a top attorney in Boston. Kozol took a few minutes to scrutinize the contract in Parcells’s presence before chortling, “The guy owes you.” The next day, Parcells telephoned Paul Tagliabue about the matter, but the NFL commissioner declined to take sides. “This is a dispute between you and the owner.”
Parcells protested, “No, it’s not, Mr. Commissioner. This is an entity that I owned. You know I owned it because you stamped your approval on the contract. I sold it, and I should be paid the amount we agreed on, regardless of my contract status. That has nothing to do with the product I sold.”
Tagliabue replied, “Well, he’s arguing differently. I guess you can sue him.”
Kozol insisted that he would prevail in court, but Parcells heeded his agent, who advised against a lawsuit. Despite his credentials as one of the NFL’s top coaches, Parcells concurred with Fraley that suing a team owner wasn’t the best idea. Another consideration was Kraft’s willingness to drag out legal cases to the point of diminishing returns for litigants.
Parcells now says about Kraft’s refusal to pay the $300,000, “That’s part of why I left New England. If he took over those sideline rights from me for a fixed amount of money, shouldn’t I anticipate being paid that amount? He’s my boss, but that doesn’t give him the right not to pay his debts to me.”
After joining the Patriots in February, Bill Belichick noticed a striking lack of communication between the organization’s owner and its head coach. By the season’s start Belichick had formed a rapport with Kraft that Parcells never came close to establishing. “I didn’t really get to know Kraft that well,” Parcells concedes. “And he didn’t know t
he business when he came in.” The owner found the new secondary coach engaging and receptive to his football inquiries. Over the course of each week the two spoke for several hours, with Belichick providing the owner with detailed postmortems about the games. The former Wesleyan economics major illuminated Kraft about mathematical principles pertaining to the salary cap. Conversely, the Ivy League–trained owner impressed Belichick with his business savvy and outside-the-box ideas.
With the onset of free agency, they agreed on the concept of attaching a value to each player to construct a team with depth. During one conversation Belichick proposed precise salaries for every spot on New England’s roster. Although Parcells held similar views and had tutored Belichick on them, the head coach felt put off by what he viewed as the novice owner further encroaching on his turf.
“People call you a control freak when you want to do it your way,” Parcells says, “but I look at it as just having confidence in your own abilities and not wanting anybody holding you back. If I’m the one who’s charged with doing the job, then let me do it. And if I don’t do it well, then fire me.”
So instead of placating Kraft, or tolerating his missteps, Parcells withdrew, leaving Belichick to play the role of intermediary between his two bosses.
After an 0-2 start, the Patriots triumphed in their home opener, beating the Arizona Cardinals 31–0. New England suddenly found its groove, taking three of its four next games, thanks to an improved defense and a diversified offense made potent by the talents of Boy Wonder and Terry Glenn. New England also consistently benefited from good field position, as Dave Meggett re-created the magic from his Giants years with dazzling returns on punts and kickoffs.
Parcells kept Kraft at arm’s length while focusing on his daily duties, pressing his players like a steaming iron on wrinkly shirts. New England’s hot streak, however, seemed to thaw the frost between owner and head coach. A few days after an October 27 victory over the Bills improved New England to 5-3, Parcells and Kraft exchanged conciliatory words. They agreed that the media reports generated by their clashes were damaging to the franchise, and Parcells surprised Kraft by expressing a sudden eagerness to return in 1997. Parcells said of their differences, “Okay, let’s do something about it right now. We can end all of that stuff with a new contract.” Caught off guard by the sharp reversal, Kraft balked. “You really don’t know what you want to do. So let’s wait until the year is over.”
Following the conversation, Kraft telephoned McDonough with his new evidence of Parcells’s seesaw personality. “Your boy wants to coach again; he asked me about it today.”
McDonough replied, “You’re kidding me. He has always told me he’s finished when the season is over.”
“See how this guy changes? He does it all the time.”
After hanging up, McDonough called Parcells to convey his befuddlement. Parcells explained several reasons for the change of heart. He was now at his happiest since joining the franchise, and was excited about its future. Feeling good, partly due to a sustained weight-loss regimen, Parcells relished the idea of molding New England’s talented group of athletes. Terry Glenn was bolstering New England’s receiving corps much the same way that Curtis Martin had transformed the running department as a rookie. With a stronger supporting cast, Bledsoe was having his best season while acting like more of a leader. The offense, less predictable than in previous years, ranked among the NFL’s elite.
Meanwhile New England’s defense had turned into a solid unit, with contributions from a slew of stout young players, including two talented rookies: linebacker Tedy Bruschi, a third-round pick via Arizona, and safety Lawyer Milloy, a second-round selection out of Washington. Milloy and free safety Willie Clay, a free-agent acquisition from the Lions, gave New England a stingy secondary. Cornerback Ty Law showed strides in his second season, confirming New England’s decision to make him its top pick in 1995. He would end up as the best cornerback in Patriots history. Another second-year player, linebacker Ted Johnson, was also contributing to a talented corps led by Willie McGinest and Chris Slade. On special teams Parcells particularly liked rookie kicker Adam Vinatieri, who had been signed as a free agent following a season with Europe’s Amsterdam Admirals, of the World League of American Football.
With the second-youngest roster in the NFL, New England seemed poised to become a powerhouse for several years. The upstart team won seven of nine to clinch the AFC East title at 10-5 with one game left. It would take place at Giants Stadium, Parcells’s first contest against Big Blue since leaving New York in 1991. A victory in the rare Saturday affair would give the Patriots a precious first-round bye.
On December 16, five days before the regular-season finale, Fraley telephoned Kraft to schedule an appointment for contract talks, but Kraft reiterated that he wanted to hold off until the season’s end. Fraley took the decision as a sign that the Patriots would target a different coach in 1997 instead of budging on the contentious issue of GM powers. His client’s interest in returning to the Patriots evaporated after hearing the owner’s stance. Once again Parcells decided to lead New England as far as possible before coaching elsewhere the following year. Rumors soon swirled that the Jets, headed for the worst season in NFL history, were awaiting Parcells’s availability so that they could name him head coach and GM.
On December 21 Parcells roiled in bed at the team hotel near Giants Stadium. His room clock showed 2:08 a.m., but the coach was too anxious to achieve any more shut-eye. He lay awake for a few hours before getting up and heading to Giants Stadium. Parcells arrived at his old stomping grounds by 8 a.m., long before the 12:30 p.m. kickoff. Ignoring temperatures in the upper teens, Parcells paced the windswept field, warming himself with memories.
As game time approached, spectators cheered when they spotted their ex-coach, but after the opening kickoff, the home crowd of 65,387 roared as Dan Reeves’s struggling Giants sprinted to a surprising 22–0 lead. New England failed to score until late in the third quarter, when Adam Vinatieri booted a 40-yard field goal. Terry Glenn had suffered a hip pointer in the period, prompting team trainers to suggest that he sit out the rest of the blowout game and save himself for the postseason. But after insisting on being left in the game, Glenn went on to grab a 26-yard touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter, making the score 22–10. Big Blue’s lead still looked secure until Dave Meggett, now New England’s Dave Meggett, zigzagged a punt return 60 yards for a touchdown with 11:09 remaining. The score stood at 22–17 with less than two minutes left to play, as New England faced fourth-and-7 at Big Blue’s 13. On the next play Ben Coates caught a pinpoint throw near the goal line, then bulled past two defenders for a touchdown, prompting teammates to smother their franchise quarterback and tight end on the ground in giddy celebration.
After the dizzying 23–22 victory, Parcells turned toward the crowd behind New England’s bench, raising his fist in the direction of Judy and his daughters. Then the emotionally charged head coach hugged Bledsoe, and even Kraft. Back in the visitors’ locker room Parcells addressed his players, and called for Terry Glenn to stand in front of the team. Teary-eyed, Parcells praised the rookie for his gutsy clutch performance. “You showed me today that you’re a player!” Glenn swelled with pride at winning over his early doubter. By catching eight passes for 124 yards he had set a single-season rookie record with 90 receptions. The Ohio State product totaled 1,132 receiving yards and scored six touchdowns.
Another star of the game, Dave Meggett, delivered the best season of his career, amassing 1,996 all-purpose yards, including 1,369 on punt and kickoff returns, to earn a Pro Bowl selection along with five teammates: tackle Bruce Armstrong, quarterback Drew Bledsoe, tight end Ben Coates, tailback Curtis Martin, and linebacker Willie McGinest. Bledsoe threw 27 touchdowns and 15 interceptions as the Patriots scored the second-most points in the NFL. The defense, Parcells’s main concern during the off-season, had improved dramatically and turned stingy late in the year. Led by McGinest, the unit finished ranked fou
rteenth among NFL teams, compared to tweny-fifth the previous year.
The Patriots had earned a home playoff game for only the second time in their twenty-six-year NFL history. At 11-5, the longtime bottom feeders also claimed the number two seed among AFC teams. Kraft realized that Parcells’s departing would anger Patriots followers, even those who had hailed the owner for preventing the franchise’s relocation. Making matters worse, Parcells’s desire to coach again meant that, barring reconciliation that would include autonomy, he would likely switch to the Jets. The owner grew concerned about being blamed by fans and the media for driving a coaching great away to a division rival. So Kraft insisted that the adversaries remain publicly civil, regardless of Parcells’s fate. While on vacation in Africa, Myra Kraft purchased Parcells a gift of an ivory elephant figurine, trunk up. New England’s lame-duck coach also agreed to play nice.
Two days after Big Blue’s collapse versus New England, the Giants fired Dan Reeves, ending his four-year tenure at 31-33 with only one playoff appearance. Before being dismissed, Reeves, the NFL’s winningest active coach, complained about the organization’s power structure. He believed that the team psychologist, whom Young had hired in 1980 partly to offer players counseling, possessed undue influence, particularly in the draft.
George Young spent the next several days interviewing four candidates: Raiders assistant head coach Joe Bugel, Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator Jim Fassel, Michigan State head coach Nick Saban, and Eagles defensive coordinator Emmitt Thomas. Young targeted Fassel, whom Parcells had hired as a quarterbacks coach in early 1991 before his abrupt retirement, but Parcells’s expected departure from New England caused the Giants to consider offering him the job.
Big Blue had gone 46-51 during their post-Parcells years, with attendance dwindling markedly during Reeves’s final season. After having ignored Parcells in 1993, Wellington Mara believed that the franchise, in the doldrums again, needed its former head coach to return. His oldest son, John Mara, the team’s chief operating officer, concurred. And with the Jets expected to court Parcells, the Giants were sensitive to the instant public-relations advantage Gang Green would gain at their expense. Hiring a new head coach required agreement between co-owners Wellington Mara and Robert Tisch once George Young had recommended a candidate. But the team psychologist, Joel Goldberg, seemed to be successfully dissuading Tisch from letting the organization pursue Parcells. Unless Tisch changed his mind, the two owners would have to settle on another person.
Parcells Page 35