I may hate how Parcells quit on the Jets, but I'll always respect what Parcells did for this franchise. I've blead green as a die hard fan since 94-95; going 1-15 was tough to swallow. If Parcells never came to the Jets in 97, we would have been the Browns of the past or the Bills of today, for at least 10 years. It was ugly before Parcells came to town. We had no hope. This man CHANGED the culture of the Franchise. After going 1-15 in 96... Going 9-7 under Parcells was one of the greatest turn arounds in NFL history. We came up short, but 1998 was a magical season. The Jets franchise never looked back; we've competed in this league ever since. No matter what type of future success I enjoy as a fan under Rex, I'll never forget where I came from as a Jets fan. I'll always remember the years of feeling hopless over my team. I'll never forget how Parcells made us relevant again.
Hold on a second. Can we say the same about Mangini too then? Since the arrival of Mangini in 2006, Jets have had 4 winning seasons out of 5, three playoff appearances, two AFC championship games, and hopefully one SB by the end of the current season. As absurd as that sounds, Mangini should be given much much more credit than a coach that left the Jets in cap hell around a decade ago. Mangini SHOULD be given credit for our current two back to back AFCCGs to some extent. Parcells should get ZERO credit for any Jets success in the last 6-7 years.
Some hate is hard to shake, that is all. Regardless of his success, Jets fans felt he left us high and dry. And well, he did. He Parcelled us. Still a great guy, but I get the hate. I like the guy myself, but I'm just whacked that way.
Rex was not invited for the interview on Parcells request. Rex had been on the verge of becoming a HC for several years while in Baltimore. He was way overdue. It doesn't matter what Parcells told Tanny. Fuck Parcells. He quit on the team after using up the cap space and he knew he had fucked things up pretty badly and that it was time to run away.
No, whats bizarre is him not hiring Rex when he thought so highly of him. Thats bizarre. You don't do favors in this league. You do what you think is the best for you. Parcells thought Tony was the best available coach since he knew him so well. He was wrong and now he wants credit for Rex hiring. Fuck that. Tanny hired Rex. I'll give the credit where its obvious. Parcells is a fucking Dolphin...or was...or maybe still is? I could seriously care less.
I don't see the big deal in Parcells giving a positive review to Mr.T about Ryan before Ryan was hired. It isn't that uncommon for someone in a GM/Team President capacity in the NFL to provide a positive recommendation concerning another coach/GM candidate for another team. I think O'Connor and/or the editors at ESPN are playing up the "told the Jets to hire Rex Ryan"-angle. I merely see it as a job recommendation.
BP needs to quielty fade away, he's had has impact on football already. I respect the hell out of him and his career, and appreciate how he turned our franchise around, but if he really liked RR that much he'd have hired him over his boy.
But that's how coaching works. You hire your friends before you hire the right guy. Mangini and Tanny are close friends. Then they got the right guy and he's winning up and down the field.
I'm sure the years of football are littered with similar situations. You always want to take care of the guys that were loyal to you, and there is a bit of comfort in knowing the guy that is getting the opportunity rather than unknowns. And sometimes, your friends get fired, go to other organizations and help spin you great draft deals, free agents, and free advice on how to beat your competition.
Terry Bradway is still an important member of this organization and was actually a decent GM. He's an even better scout and talent evaluator, though.
How is this tampering? Tampering is when a player or coach is under contract to someone else and you try to persuade that player or coach to come work for you. If they were trying to hire parcells it would be tampering or if Rex was head coach of the Dolphins it would be tampering. A person can ask for advice from someone on another team and, in fact, GMs do this all the time. The jets, in fact, did it with numerous people in the Baltimore Ravens organization when they were checking up on Rex. Now, that would be tampering, except I think there's a rule saying you can hire someone for a more senior position from another team without it being tampering (although you might have to get permission from them first). If the jets tried to hire Rex as a defensive coordinator it would have been tampering.
I have a problem with it because you left one important adjective off of your list of Parcells' characteristics: he's an egomaniac. If he really thought that Ryan was so great, then he would've hired him. Plain and simple. The fact that we're only hearing about his recommendation now, when Rex's star is shining its brightest, suggests to me that Parcells just wants to claim some of the Jets success in the interest of his new traveling consulting business. Teams will be more likely to ask for his advice in the future if they think of his most recent suggestion being Rex Ryan, not Tony Sparano.
Sparano looked smarter than he was before Chad Pennington got hurt, the same way Herm Edwards and Eric Mangini did.
If Parcells was working for the Jets and told the GM of the Dolphins hire Ryan you wouldn't have an issue with it if the Dolphins went to two straight AFC title games and we had two straight seven-win seasons? Yes execs do talk all over the league and give out reccomendations to their buddies but still if true it seems a bit odd to be helping your team's supposed biggest rival but I wouldn't put it past Bill to be overstating his 'role' in hiring Rex for the Jets for ego purposes. Heck, if I was a Browns fan I'd be b****ing about Mangini handing us Sanchez and Edwards on a silver platter. He was definitely doing Tanny a favor, with the Sanchez trade especially.
alot of people have these six degrees of seperation stories and pats on the back somehow correlating parcells to take even more credit for success that occurs after he leaves. i loved the guy but people blow him off because he was the only person who took us beyond mediocrity in a while. and for some reason people still hold this attachment to it. i love the fact he brought curtis martin here and plenty of other things but the guy pretty much turns teams around to sniffing greatness and leaves before finishing what he started. (barring the NYG tenure of course) good coach and evaluator though. just too much manlove for him IMO.
GREAT Coach, mediocre GM type. It's not a coincidence that his only SB wins came w/ George Young as his GM.
oh when i said talent evaluator i didnt mean his GM roles. i meant he usually knew who to bring along from his previous teams to use as building blocks on his new teams. nothing more.
Yes, fair point. I'd be pissed in the sense that here he is recommending someone that we should have hired ourselves, rather than pissed in the sense that any sort of tampering or under the table dealing went on. Essentially, I'd be like, as I'd imagine Dolphins fans might be upon reading this story - "If you knew this guy was so great (Ryan), why didn't you hire him? And why are we instead stuck with this albatross of a coach (Sparano)?"
