"Fear" factor = wins?

[maddogkf]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/oconnor/2003-10-13-o-connor_x.htm

Fear factor works in Parcells' favor

Bill Parcells has the game all figured out. You want to be a master builder, an empire maker, an architect for the ages? You only need one tool: fear.

No coach since Vince Lombardi has used fear like Bill Parcells. His players are afraid of him. They're afraid of letting him down. They're afraid of being berated, being benched and being told they aren't worth the paper carrying the clauses of their non-guaranteed deals. Mostly, they're afraid of being exposed as men who couldn't cut it on a Bill Parcells team.

That's why the Dallas Cowboys are 4-1, lording over the NFC East. Do you believe a guy from New Hampshire — New Hampshire, for goodness sake — would've returned an opening onside kick for a touchdown, and done so at historic speed, if the likes of Dave Campo were standing under that headset?

Nobody feared Dave Campo, except maybe a few million Cowboys fans. The same Philadelphia Eagles who recovered onside kicks on Campo's 5-11 teams and beat them by an average of 23 points now stand two games behind the Cowboys, a team that believes because Parcells gives it no choice but to believe.

"He's just a great coach, and great coaches do these things," said Ernie Accorsi, general manager of a New York Giants team that was supposed to be fighting the Eagles for first place yet now sits the same two games back. "I was a big Colts fan as a kid, and one of my first lessons was seeing the '59 Packers and the Colts in a 17-17 death struggle in the fourth quarter. The Packers were the worst team in the league the year before, and suddenly they were on their way to 7-5.

"They didn't even show coaches on TV back then. Maybe you'd get an occasional shot of their shoes, below the camel hair coat. And I was too young to realize what had happened."

Vince Lombardi had happened.

"Parcells will go down as one of the greatest of all time, too," Accorsi said. "He's in our division, and I'm not conceding him anything, but there isn't anything he'll do in his career that would surprise me."

Not even making a winner out of Quincy Carter. Pre-Parcells, all Carter heard were fan and media voices of doubt and doom. Then Big Bill told him differently, told him he was the man, and pointed him toward the playbooks and weights. Carter didn't do too much Sunday other than make the one third-down play he had to make to win the game.

"Any time a kid is told a coach believes in him, it helps his confidence," Accorsi said. "But when a kid hears that from Bill Parcells, it means even more."

It means the most in the NFL. Phil Jackson has won nine titles in the NBA, and Joe Torre is working on No. 5 with the New York Yankees. But basketball is ruled by the superstar athlete, baseball by pitching. In football, teams assume the personalities of their head coaches more than they do in any other sport.

Jon Gruden was MVP of the last Super Bowl, and Parcells gets the early regular-season nod over Dante Hall. Jerry Jones doesn't own the Cowboys anymore. He sold them the second he hired Parcells to do what he does best: thrive on the tension created inside the team facilities he runs as police states. "He's a very difficult guy to play for when you're playing badly," Phil Simms told me once. "He's just someone you don't want to be around when things aren't going well."

So things usually go just fine around Parcells. He won two Super Bowls with the Giants, got to a third with the Patriots and was 30 minutes away with the Jets. His mentor and high school basketball coach, Mickey Corcoran, forever likens Parcells to Corcoran's own basketball coach, Lombardi.

"Bill is like Vince in so many ways: very emotional, organized, a tremendous disciplinarian," Corcoran said. "They both had great player-coach relationships. They always knew there was a fine line between player and coach, and that the line couldn't be crossed. Like Bill, Vince was a master of handling that line."

It's a line colored by fear. Corcoran remembers one of Parcells' Patriots carrying a snowball into practice, until the sound of the coach's booming voice melted it in the player's hand.

"Bill has followed in Lombardi's footsteps," said Larry Ennis, a Giants scout and Parcells friend who used to hop an Englewood, N.J., fence to watch Lombardi run practice at St. Cecilia High. "Emotional, aggressive, always prepared. Bill and Vince were both from Oradell (N.J.), they both coached with the Giants, and Bill told me he wanted to coach the Green Bay Packers."

He's coaching the Dallas Cowboys instead. Only Parcells and Lombardi could've made them 4-1 by enforcing this law of the NFL land: fear never strikes out.

Ian O'Connor also writes forThe (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News


__________________

Does this mean our players do not fear the coach?

 

[JeffGollin]

Nice piece on Parcells, but a bit too pat about the use of fear.

What Parcells really brings is credibilty. Wherever he goes, he's been successful. So when he says something, players tend to listen.

Once credibility is established, he can - with little or no resistance - mold the team so that it takes on his personality (which, as we know, isn't real warm and fuzzy).

 

[Tangodnzr]

Parcells also has people around him that he knows and trusts, and are familiar with how he does things. Maurice Caurthon the OC, is a perfect example. He's part of the "troupe" Tuna has been able to assemble through his years of experience.
Tuna is a great coach, but he didn't get there all by himself.

He has a system that he had found works for him, and has found people that fit with him in making that system work.

 

[kerouac9]

There's an article in ESPN Insider today about what Jack Del Rio is doing in J-Ville. It says that he's shown belief in his players, and earned their confidence, in part by twice going for it on fourth down. Neither time did the offense convert, but it earned the players' respect.

The article states that in order to maintain this confidence and respect, the coach needs to produce wins. I think that Mac has failed to produce wins, and a number of players are just getting tired of hearing the same crap and wating the numbers rise on the right side of the W/L column.

 

[Wild Card]

Originally posted by JeffGollin
Nice piece on Parcells, but a bit too pat about the use of fear. What Parcells really brings is credibilty. Wherever he goes, he's been successful. So when he says something, players tend to listen. Once credibility is established, he can - with little or no resistance - mold the team so that it takes on his personality (which, as we know, isn't real warm and fuzzy).

Jeff:

Agreed, on all counts. I found a somewhat more-thoughtful article, analyzing Parcells' influence on the Cowboys, posted 10/12 on ESPN.com by Len Pasquarelli. Excerpts below (with the link, for anyone who wants to read it all):

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=pasquarelli_len&id=1636661

>>... the seeds of a 23-21 victory that boosted the Cowboys to a two-game advantage in the NFC East and produced the club's best start to a campaign since 1995, were actually sown by the man with whom most of the early-season success has originated.

And that, of course, would be head coach Bill Parcells.

"It all started last Monday in the team meeting," recalled owner Jerry Jones, "when Bill basically told our guys, 'Hey, I'm not afraid of the Eagles and you shouldn't be afraid of them, either.' He said he didn't care what happened in the past, that history is history, and we were starting with a clean slate against (Philadelphia). Our players responded to that."

... the Parcells band of boy scouts was certainly well prepared for Sunday's game. In truth, every coach in the league sweats the detail stuff, preaches to his team that it must do the "little things" necessary to win in a league where, historically, 50 percent of games are determined by one score.

Parcells, though, lives for detail stuff. And his inherent obsession with matters a lot of folks would deem little more than useless minutiae or trifling trivia not only borders on fanaticism, but clearly trickles down to his assistant coaches and his players.

"You name the situation, we practice for it, I think," said tailback Troy Hambrick, who slugged into the middle of the Philadelphia defense 18 times for 46 rushing yards. "There isn't anything that happens in a game that we haven't practiced for. Stuff you figure will never happen? You can bet that, at some point since camp, (Parcells) has brought it up."

... "Everybody says their coaches are smart," said (Cowboys backup wide receiver Randal) Williams, whose touchdown was the first of his career. "But our coaches, from Coach Parcells on down, there isn't much that they haven't seen at some point in their careers, you know? Does it make you more confident, having that (knowledge) on your side, man? Sure, it does, what do you think? They tell you something is going to happen and it happens. It gives you confidence in the coaches and confidence in yourself."

... As everyone knows, knowledge is power, and the presence of Parcells on the sideline has suddenly made the Cowboys a potentially potent playoff contender.

Outside a raucous locker room, Jones noted that Parcells expects to win every week, and that attitude has raised the owner's expectations as well. Jones applauded the degree of preparation to which Parcells goes, praised the diligence of his staff, spoke glowingly of the resurgence the coach has promulgated.

"To be honest, our skill level probably isn't as good as our record, and that's why this is such a statement game for us," Jones said. "We beat a very good team today. And we're moving toward being a pretty good team ourselves. That's why I pay Bill the big money."<<


Makes sense to me.

WC

 

[conraddobler]

Parcells is a great coach because he dosen't accept mediocrity if he pats you on the back it is a huge deal. He almost never does that but when he does it has a huge effect. See Quincy Carter.

Bill Walsh is another great coach and while he I am sure has traits of Parcells the biggest one is knowledge of the game.

Players respect coaches who know what they are doing. Parcells carries that with him without having to establish it. Other coaches have to work years at it and that is why he can turn a team so fast.

Really players will play for any coach that they think is better than the other coaches at helping them win and it does not matter how nice or mean they are.

Mac does not have to be like Parcells except in one area and that is showing his players that he can structure a game plan that will effectively help them win the game.

My guess is that whatever the personal feelings for Mac are that this area isn't there and that is why they turn the ball over and do stupid things like throw balls they shouldn't, allow punts to be blocked exactly as they were told not to, and generally bumble through games.