He did and it is one of the reasons Belichick turned down the job. In 2002 the Jets finally had to pay the piper for Parcells spending. They were 28 million over the cap. To get under it they had to get rid of 6 starters. Both cbs, Randy thomas and I believe one other promising player. But the cap situation was so bad the Jets did not get out of cap hell until the new cba in 2006. Every year, they had to keep pushing money into future years were unable to resign their own players like Moss and Coles and unable to spend in FA until 2005 when they signed Ty Law with one exception when they signed Cowart to make the new dc happy. Obviously there are a ton of good things to say about Parcells and what he did to change the Jets culture. But, we should not ignore the bad things such as the crippling cap mess that he left us in. In his own words he did a nice job buying the groceries but unfortunately he left many years of grocery bills on the Jets credit card.
That's not really cap hell though because we never had to pay a long term price like we did after 2010/11. In 2002 we had to make a lot of cuts. Its also the last time we won the division, which incldued beating BB. The only really bad year we had before the new cba was 2005, and that was because Pennington, Martin, and a lot of other starters missed most of the season with injuries - and Herm quit on the season. There was never really a price paid in terms of success.
That was early in my jets tenure. Correct me if I’m wrong, but both cowart and law proved to be shot by the time we got them, correct?
There were two reasons why Belichick left: he wanted full control of the team and ownership change on the Jets. None of these is Parcell's fault. You could make an argument Parcells could have left and not become a GM when he was offered that job, hoping Belichick would then stay, but it's not his fault for accepting the job offer. Jets did go 9-7 that year, though didn't make play-offs.
Cap hell lasted for four years. We had to get rid of 25 percent of the teams starters in 2002 and constantly push cap money into the future. We did not have the money to sign our own players or big name FAs. We lost a lot of talent like Coles and Moss because of it. The only thing that reset the cap for us was the 2006 CBA. We never had a cap problem in 2010 or afterwards. By that time teams had learned from reckless spending mistakes by many teams to manage the cap to give themselves relief built into their planning budgets. Tannenbaum spent but he always had an exit plan. When Idzik took over he followed Tanny's plan almost point for point to create cap space.
There were a number of reasons speculated in the media as to why Belichick turned down the job. The three main reasons were he did not want to be in Parcells shadow, he did not trust Woody and the Jets financial situation was precarious with a huge payment that would have to be paid in the next year or two.
Don't forget tampering. I don't remember giving the Patriots permission to talk to Bellichick until after he resigned and we negotiated for a draft pick.
Ultimately we lost him because we were in cap hell and did not have the money to pay him and everyone else. Signing other teams good FAs was impossible. The Jets only had enough money to cheaply sign their own and push the cap charge into the future waiting for relief at the next CBA.
We had the money to give Coles a second round tender. We were just cheap and or stupid. The reason most of the roster turned over is because Herm ditched the 3-4 for a cover two scheme. We basically fed the Patriots their first Super bowl when we cut those guys loose.
This is actually slightly incorrect, but the correction is important. Parcells had signed Belichick to a contract that said the minute Parcells resigned from coaching, Belichick was the Jets head coach. That was the terms of Belichick's coaching contract. So when Parcells heard that Belichick was close to being hired with the Patriots, he actually resigned to lock Belichick into his head coaching responsibilities. That's how much he valued Belichick to the franchise. The problem was Belichick wanted the Patriots job instead because he would have full control. So he technically tendered his letter of resignation to the Jets (as head coach, famously written on a napkin) and then took the Patriots job.
We didn't have a choice. At the time the Patriots were interviewing, Belichick was an assistant. The Jets had no right to block Belichick from interviewing for a promotion. It was only once Parcells learned he was probably gonna be offered (and take) the job, that he resigned, making Belichick the Jets head coach, and preventing him from moving further in the Patriots interview process. Then Belichick resigned from the Jets and the league stepped in. Belichick's press conference when he resigned:
Let's not forget that our sorry franchise was one of the last teams (if not the last) to even employ a GM. It was a big deal when Dick Steinberg was hired in 1990. We've only had GM's for 31 years. JD already is the best we've had as far as I'm concerned. Very low bar. JD does not have to be a great GM to be our best.
No he was not an assistant, he was our head coach who quit on the first day as the Patriots tampered with him and he chose to work for them.
Why can't we just be happy we had a good draft. Why a declaration before the season has even started. We get a win against the Titans last season next thing we know we have threads about the playoffs. Before that, it was fire everyone. Can we not have such rollercoaster takes?
When he was interviewing with the Patriots, he was the Jets assistant coach. Teams cannot block employees from interviewing (or taking the job) for a promotion with a different team. At the point when Parcells resigned (immediately making Belichick the Jets HC), the interview process was basically concluded. In fact, they were probably in the middle of lawyers negotiating the terms of the contract, which would explain how Parcells was 100% certain Belichick was on his way out. Once Belichick was the Jets HC, anything the Patriots did would have been tampering ... which is why the league office got involved. The league office just wanted everything to go away without having to investigate.
We know he valued Belichick. My point is that blaming Parcells for Belichick choosing to go to NE is not fair to Parcells. Parcells turned this franchise around from absolute laughing stock to a winning team, including having second best season in team's history and not having ANY losing seasons. What he did was good for organization, yet now he is blamed for Manning deciding to stay for sr year, Belichick going to NE, CAP hell (which btw sounds like a good place to be - Browns and Saints had no problem offering Watson quarter billion while in CAP hell), etc... He made the Jets into a winner, and players he drafted like Pennington, played key roles in making play offs even after he left.
I don't think there's any questioning it at this point. Joe Douglas is head and shoulders above any other slug GM this team has ever hired besides maybe Parcells. His focus and efforts to turn this team around are truly admirable. While I definitely do NOT think his job is finished, hell I don't even the offense is as complete as everyone else seems to think, he has truly accomplished way more than most thought he was capable of. The offense still needs a decent Fullback and a good backup interior OL. The team overall still has major weaknesses at Kicker, Punter, Safety, Linebacker, fullback, and backup OL. With that said, if Zach fails it will only be because Zach wasn't up to the task.....
