PALM BEACH, Fla. -- At the NFL meetings every year, there's a Monday night reception with a band (Adele seemed to be the flavor of the evening last night) and most of the coaches, owners, GMs, league people and media mixing it up. At this little soiree, I got one question about 18 times: "You think Bill Parcells would come back?''
I do, under the right circumstances.
I covered Parcells for four years as a Giants beat writer for Newsday in the '80s, and have known him well since then. I watched a spring training game with him in Jupiter, Fla., on Monday. And so I've spoken with him about the Saints situation at some length.
And there may never have been circumstances more right than these for Parcells to get back on the sideline.
Five reasons why:
1. It's a 10-month job. Nine-, maybe, by the time Parcells would take over. Parcells, who will be 72 on opening day, insists on a one-year contract with ESPN because he doesn't want to be pinned down for longer than that.
2. It's with a legitimate Super Bowl contender. He's had Phil Simms and Drew Bledsoe, who were very good quarterbacks, but never a quarterback who's the complete package playing at this high a level as Drew Brees. It's a passing league. He knows he'd be able to basically cede control of the offense to Brees and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, sit back, and watch them put 30 points on the board most weeks.
3. He really likes Sean Payton. He'd be doing Payton a solid.
4. The money's good, or should be. Parcells owns horses and likes money.
5. It's fun. Maybe this should be No. 1. Parcells isn't one of those guys who got out of the game and said, "I'm sick of this stuff.'' He loves to throw out opinions on who's good and who isn't. On Monday, he sat with former Packers GM Ron Wolf, and Wolf is perfectly content in retirement -- doing other things like studying the baseball Cardinals roster (which Parcells does too) and discussing a recent educational trip to Cuba. Parcells has fun talking football. He was all abuzz about a trip to a coaching convention at Alabama last weekend. You could see how much he'd be into coaching one more time.
We'll see what happens. I don't think it will take long to decide. But the one immediate hangup would be this: If Payton decides to appeal the suspension to Goodell, he'd wait to hear the results before the Saints acted on Parcells. Because if the suspension is reduced so Payton would coach part of this season, he likely would turn to an interim coach on the staff instead of Parcells.
Read more:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...bill.parcells.saints/index.html#ixzz1qSvE2ukO
