Mass recovery

Sporting News, The, August 29, 1994 by Terry Frei

The Training Camp World According to Bill Parcells, mid-August (and we're paraphrasing here): Hey, Drew Bledsoe. Yeah, you! Enough of this casual stuff. You're taking every snap from here on. No rest for you, kid, no turns for the other quarterbacks. Run this play three straight times, once for each fullback. Maybe by the time you make the reverse pivot and the handoff three times in sudden succession and you're feeling a little like you just put your forehead on the handle of a Louisville Slugger and did 11 revolutions around the bat, you'll get the message.

"I wasn't particularly critical of Bledsoe," the Patriots' coach says later at Bryant College in Smithfield, R.I.-- and with a straight face and unsharpened edge. Parcells' message for Bledsoe? "He needs to understand that there's a sense of urgency," he says.

Next day: In 11-on-11 drills, Bledsoe completes a long touchdown pass to Vincent Brisby. Drops it right in there. Perfect. If this were a game, every radio and TV analyst upstairs would say during the replay: "Right on the money!" Parcells, the restless analyst during his two-year coaching sabbatical, calls out: "Hey, guys, let's gather round and bow down to Drew because he made a completion." And the Patriots, a disciplined bunch, follow orders.

"Just because the guy's a second-year player, that doesn't make him a veteran," Parcells says about Bledsoe. "That's the big thing. Especially at this position. Everybody thinks he's going to come in here and be automatically better than he was. I hope he is, but he's got a lot to do, a lot to concentrate on and it's my job to make him do that."

Away from the practice field, Bledsoe shrugs.

"You realize there's always a reason behind everything he says, whether he's trying to correct something or in one way or another trying to motivate," Bledsoe says.

This is the milieu Parcells missed in 1991 and '92, the energizing challenge of riding this player, praising another, ignoring a third -- depending on which approach tends to work with each guy.

"He loves what he's doing," says safety Myron Guyton, an offseason free-agent signee who played under Parcells with the Giants. "I had a talk with Bill before I signed, right after my free agency started. He told me that when he wasn't coaching, he felt like he wasn't part of anything. Something was missing in his life. That's how he is with football -- it's something he's got to have.

"The first day of camp, I found out he was still Bill, yelling and screaming, which is good. I missed that. I was used to having a coach like that, and it doesn't bother me because you hear what you want to hear. The other stuff you just let go out. Because if you don't..." -- Guyton pauses for a quick laugh -- "Bill's the type of guy who can get next to you."

On the verge of Parcells' second season with the Patriots, his program -- and the interrelated renaissance of the franchise under new Owner Robert Kraft -- has caught the fancy of New England. It's understandable.

Under the longtime ownership of the Sullivan family, the Patriots had their moments, even making that Super Bowl appearance after the '85 season, but they often were run as if they still were playing against AFL teams wearing vertically striped socks. Things weren't any better under Victor Kiam. Until Parcells arrived, the Patriots weren't selling many more season tickets than Boise State, which was appropriate in the sense that to Boston residents, isolated Foxboro Stadium might as well have been in Idaho. So here are the Patriots, after many years of instability and discussion of possible moves, on the verge of selling every 1994 ticket before the opening of the regular season.

The problem here is that the euphoria seems to have inflated hopes for Parcells' second season far beyond realistic parameters. Got a ticket for the Patriots' "sleeper" bandwagon? Have the Patriots penciled in as a possible playoff team? Maybe even a challenger for the AFC East title?

If you do, you probably cite:

* Four consecutive victories at the end of a 5-11 season.

* Parcells, who will turn out to be (in the words of that well-known football scribe, Henrik Ibsen) a master builder.

* Young talent, including Bledsoe and 1994 top pick Willie McGinest, the linebacker from Southern California.

* Parcells, who has taken two Roman-numeraled Gatorade baths.

* Key signings of veteran free agents.

* A 3-0 start in the exhibition season.

* The persuasive Parcells, who even was able to talk Kraft out of spending millions on a sissy wide receiver or two and using the under-the-cap cash to add the big lineman (Bob Kratch) and running back (Marion Butts) who help position the Pats to play some smashmouth.

Guyton, Kratch, running back Blair Thomas, cornerback Ricky Reynolds and linebacker Steve DeOssie are all free-agent signees. Butts and Leroy Thompson came in trades, putting the Patriots in position to issue an ultimatum to Leonard Russell, the No. 3 rusher in the AFC last season. In the offseason, the cap-conscious Parcells ordained Russell worth $1.4 million a year; Russell turned it down. By the time camp opened, following the acquisition of Butts, the offer was down to $495,000. Russell signed with the Broncos for $1.35 million instead, and the affair was another indication that the game will be played by Parcells' rules -- the rules that have prompted so many to tout the Patriots.