Silver streak: Bill Parcells has engineered an improbable transformation in Dallas, but there are weaknesses to overcome if the joy ride is to continue into the payoffs

Sporting News, The, Nov 17, 2003 by Paul Attner

In 1996, Bill Parcells guided the Patriots to an unanticipated Super Bowl berth. Chris Palmer, who was his quarterbacks coach, remembers Parcells talking about "getting into the train and taking off and not stopping at every station, just keep going." Parcells preached only about winning, not championships or what other teams were achieving. He kept the players and coaches so focused and so grounded that Palmer says the immensity of what they accomplished really didn't strike him until the next year.

This selective amnesia approach--what Palmer, now the Texans' offensive coordinator, calls Parcells' "great ability to convey a message and stay with it"--has become the central focus of the Cowboys' improbable run toward a playoff berth. Forget that they really shouldn't be this good, that their quarter-back still is developing his pro skills, that their running back is inferior, that their offensive line is vulnerable, that the pressure they generate on quarterbacks comes from blitzing, not a front four rush. As Parcells asked them last week, "Why not us?"

He won't let the players talk about the playoffs in public. He praises his team with great reluctance. He pounces on every mistake, chews them out after wins if their play isn't up to his standards. He realizes what should have been a rebuilding season has instead become an amazing opportunity; the Cowboys, who beat the Bills, 10-6, last Sunday, lead the NFC East and are tied for the best record (7-2) in the conference. So he has packed them on the same train the Patriots rode and is hammering a similar message: You can grab chat seemed so ridiculously fartetched two short months ago.

No coach in the NFL is better at recognizing a gift and not wasting it. The Cowboys don't question Parcells' gospel, not after winning a total of 15 games the previous three years. They know he has done this before, taken bad teams and made them better. But with them, he can achieve something new; never has he transformed a loser into a playoff contender so fast.

Parcells realizes all too well that on a roster with limited talent, it's a constant struggle to keep the old destructive ways from undermining the new winning habits. But he senses he might be able to steal one this season. So he keeps up the heavy-handed pressure, prodding and bullying and criticizing, always raising the bar. He's pushing himself, too; he was so disturbed about how the Cowboys played in a victory over the Redskins two weeks ago that he showed up at the practice facility at 3:30 the next morning. According to team owner Jerry Jones, Parcells recently told a close friend he is working harder coaching this team than any previous team.

All this agonizing--"It's a character flaw," he admits about his inability to be satisfied even amid progress--ultimately will be reflected in how his Cowboys perform the next four weeks against a considerably tougher schedule, with home games against Carolina and Miami sandwiched around road tests against New England and Philadelphia. They should lose three of the four, dousing some of this joy ride. But still, this is Parcells, which makes the improbable certainly possible. This then is how he has done it so far--and the weaknesses he must overcome to sustain the run.

'It kills me to make mistakes'

It's almost unfair to expect more from Quincy Carter. He already is the shining symbol of Parcells' reclamation project in Dallas, rebounding from the scrap heap of last season to the starting quarterback of a contending team. He has done it when it seemed his short career might be over, the way he deteriorated a year ago, being benched after the seventh game, when he had four interceptions against the Cardinals, arguing with Jones on the sideline, his personal life marred by immature behavior. He stopped talking both to teammates and his offensive coordinator and blamed everyone but himself for his decline.

But Carter considers the hiring of Parcells a blessing that saved him. "I didn't grow up with a father," he says. "Having a lather figure like him around is really special to me. His biggest motto is, 'Who are you? What makes you tick?' He cares about me as a person. He has gotten to know who I am, my desires, my ambitions. I want to show him I appreciate him giving me another opportunity."

So Carter the slacker has become Carter the workaholic. He has doubled the time he spends preparing for games. Now when he drops back, he's no longer in a self described fog. "I was thinking while dropping back last year, but now I'm going through my reads instead," he says. He has repaired his relationship with his teammates, and first-year offensive assistant David Lee has refined his mechanics, particularly shortening his stride to help him throw more with his legs, not just his arm.

It's not enough. He understands consistency is a fragile commodity and that his weekly improvement is critical to the team's success the next month. "I'm still learning," he says. "I have a long way to go. It kills me to make mistakes."