Take That!

Football Digest, Dec, 2000 by Barry Wilner

Featuring plot twists more outlandish than those you'd find in the WWF, the Patriots and the Jets have developed the league's most intense rivalry

THE NFL LONG HAS BEEN FERTILE ground for blood feuds. The Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears rivalry goes back as far as the league itself. The New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles have worked up an intense dislike for one another through the years, as have the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders, the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys, the St. Louis Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, and the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In recent years, though, the most intriguing clash has been between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets. The fact that they both reside in the AFC East seems incidental--these teams wouldn't like each other if they were on opposite ends of the country and in different conferences.

No matter what the sport, Boston and New York long have viewed each other with contempt. The Yankees and the Red Sox have been mortal enemies since the sale of Babe Ruth; the Celtics and the Knicks spilled much sweat on the parquet floor at the Boston Garden over the years; and the Rangers and the Bruins spilled much blood on the Garden ice.

But until Bill Parcells emerged in Foxboro, Mass., and then defected to the Big Apple, the Pats and the Jets coexisted nicely enough. In fact, former team owners Leon Hess of the Jets and the Sullivan family of the Patriots were longtime comrades in making the AFL and then the AFC formidable. It could be argued that the Jets had a bigger rivalry with the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills. Same goes for the Patriots.

But when New England reeled in "the Tuna" in 1993, everything started to change. Parcells quickly turned the underachieving Patriots into a winning football team, and by 1996 New England made it to the Super Bowl.

But even as the Pats were rising, Parcells' relationship with team owner Robert Kraft was growing more contentious. Parcells insisted on having more of a role in personnel decisions, coming up with this analogy: "If they want you to cook the dinner, they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries."

Parcells was referring to being overruled in the 1996 draft, when he sought more defensive help but Kraft and personnel director Bobby Grier preferred wideout Terry Glenn. When Parcells referred to Glenn as "she" in evaluating the rookie's progress, he was making it clear just how annoyed he was with the situation.

A year earlier, Parcells had renegotiated his contract to eliminate the final season, 1997. He believed he would be free to move to another team after the '96 season, but he actually was bound to the Patriots, although it took a ruling from commissioner Paul Tagliabue to determine Parcells' lack of availability.

Kraft claimed he had nearly fired Parcells after the '96 draft, considering him insubordinate. But the owner backed off, Parcells did one of his best coaching jobs ever, and the Patriots won the AFC crown. The damage was done, however, and only a few days after the Super Bowl defeat, Parcells announced he was resigning from the Patriots.

At that time, the downtrodden Jets had just rid themselves of Rich Kotite, who was 4-28 in two years at their helm. They had the No. 1 pick in the draft for the second successive year. And they wanted Parcells.

The war was about to begin.

If the Jets had been speaking with representatives for Parcells, they would have been nailed for tampering, fined, and forbidden from hiring him as coach. So if there was communication between the sides, it was done very surreptitiously.

Kraft was certain something was going on between the Jets and Parcells. The Patriots boss, who did not own the team when Parcells was hired in 1993, made sure New England would be fully compensated if Parcells wound up in New York. "The best thing for the New England Patriots competitively is for Bill Parcells not to coach next year," Kraft said. "If another team wants him, it'll require at least a first-round draft choice."

With the Jets owning the top overall selection, Kraft was salivating at the thought of getting the best college player in the nation--not to mention other goodies--in exchange for an employee who no longer wanted to work in Foxboro. As the winter grew colder, the situation grew hotter. The Jets, getting nowhere in their negotiations with the Patriots, tried a unique end around: Longtime Parcells aide Bill Belichick would coach the Jets in the 1997 season, with Parcells serving only as a consultant. After that season, Parcells would assume his rightful place on the throne in New York, and Belichick would become the defensive coordinator/ assistant head coach.

"This so-called consulting agreement is a transparent farce," Kraft said. "It's merely the latest in a series of acts by the Jets and Bill Parcells, which further demonstrates it has been their intention all along to have Bill Parcells become head coach of the Jets for the '97 season."

Well, yeah. But the Jets figured they could force Kraft's hand by signing Parcells to a future pact as coach/chief of football operations. The Jets were willing to make a deal to get Parcells on their sideline right away, and Kraft knew he couldn't afford to let the Tuna swim away without compensation. Parcells claimed the Jets received approval from the NFL for their plan, but the league said "the Jets were neither denied nor given permission to make a consulting agreement with Parcells for 1997."