These 'boys will learn to share

Sporting News, The, Jan 13, 2003 by Dave Kindred

The soap opera scenario has the Cowboys winning when Bill Parcells turns, bumps into a pinstriped suit, orders three defensive linemen to carry the intruder off the sidelines, only later realizing he has evicted the man who gave him $17.1 million, at which time Parcells says, "And sit on him, if you have to, but keep him outta my sight."

Such delicious fun, Tuna canning Jerry Jones.

Alas, only in our dreams.

They're too smart, competitive and driven to do anything so foolish as get in each other's way. Theirs is a marriage of football convenience made by football obsessives. They've won five Super Bowl rings (Parcells two, Jones three) but none lately. And now these aging lions have set out anew in search of blood.

Ron Wolf heard it in Parcells' voice. Once one of the NFL's best general managers, the 1996 Super Bowl champion Packers his masterwork, Wolf now is retired. Before all the Cowboys stuff happened, he spoke to Parcells.

Despite what people say, Wolf says, Bill didn't do it for the money," an allusion to a divorce settlement Parcells has made. "He's OK financially. He just had the itch to coach again. And when you get the itch, you scratch it."

Still. It's Parcells, it's Jones. Such ego monsters, such power trippers. For decades kings of all they surveyed, they have been certain that their answers are the only answers. Jerry Jones once said he had created such a machine that any of 500 people could do what Jimmy Johnson had done, even, if necessary, Jones himself. And it wouldn't be a surprise to learn that Bill Parcells considers owners spare parts available in the nickel tray at hardware stores.

So what happens when the owner, Jones, also works as his club's general manager, retaining for himself the last call on the draft, personnel decisions and roster moves?

What happens when that owner's new coach, Parcells, long has insisted on those very powers, if not with the Giants, with whom he won his Super Bowls, certainly with his subsequent reconstruction of the Patriots and lets?

Well, the antagonists could work out their differences with a steel-cage rasslin' match at Texas Stadium, $50 pay-per-view. Or they could be grownups working toward a common goal--as Wolf believes they will.

Evidence suggests that bargaining has been done, compromises achieved and agreements sealed with $500-an-hour legal language that empowers Parcells as it enjoins Jones from making football decisions.

"I would think before Parcells took the job," Wolf says "that he examined all possibilities and felt very comfortable that he and Jerry could co-exist. He wouldn't go in otherwise."

The "possibilities" surely included discussion of power in a football organization. It's best shared by a coach and a general manager, with the G.M. having last call on draft/roster decisions. Though both the coach and general manager jobs are integral to success, they're done by men with different temperaments and different skills. Those differences inoculate a franchise against one man's failures.

"It's checks and balances," says Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi. "If I were an owner, I'd want both houses of Congress deciding my future."

Once, Accorsi says, he sat with a coach who insisted on hiring a certain defender. "The coach said the guy was a great pass rusher, and our scouts didn't think so. So I asked the coach to show me on tape what he saw. As we watched, the coach went on about technique. Fine. Good technique. But be never got anywhere near the quarterback."

Coaches are leaders, teachers, strategists. General managers, in addition to business-side duties, sit atop a pyramid of talent scouts. For the best scouts, a lifetime looking at players instills an instinct for the work. Ron Wolf has forgotten more reasons for knowing he likes a player than a nouveau riche owner will ever learn--and probably more than most coaches, as the Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan examples show.

With Wolf at his side the last four years in Green Bay, Holmgren coached teams that went 48-16 and 7-3 in playoff games, including one Super Bowl victory. In the four years since in Seattle, where he demanded last say on personnel, Holmgren is 31-33 with one playoff game, a defeat.

Shanahan demanded last say after successive Super Bowl victories and a four-year run of 47-17, 7-1 in playoff games. In the four years of total authority (and without John Elway), Shanahan is 34-30 with one playoff game, a defeat.

So, the four years before assuming all authority, Holmgren and Shanahan were 95-33 with 14 playoff victories, three in Super Bowls. After: 65-63 with two playoff games, both defeats.

All this, Parcells knows. He knows it's best that a coach and a general manager share power. The irony is, he and Jones agree on the concept even as Parcells says he won't work that way. For Parcells also knows there are exceptions to every rule, such as, ahem, himself.

Accorsi agrees: "The Jets are winning now with players he brought in." Ron Wolf says, "Right now, one guy has demonstrated that he can handle all the authority: Parcells."