Parcells Talks Future, Not End of the Line

It didn’t sound like goodby. If it was, Bill Parcells isn’t nearly as sparkling a communicator as everybody says.

Flooded by rumors that he might retire to the television booth or resign to take the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ coaching job, the coach of the Super Bowl champion New York Giants Monday sounded very much like someone who isn’t ready to leave the job that both torments him and captivates him.

Parcells, who often talks about being exhausted by coaching, has fueled most of these rumors by his refusal to say whether he will return to fulfill the final year of his contract with the Giants. Monday, he repeated that he will re-evaluate his situation during the next few weeks.

But he did not sound burned out, did not look as if he had enough. Euphoria is the word he used, not normally a word for quitters.

On the morning after the Giants’ 20-19 defeat of the Buffalo Bills--the closest and maybe the best Super Bowl game in history--Parcells wisecracked through the little controversies that seem to surround a New York championship team, started planning what the Giants will have to do to avoid the post-Super Bowl doldrums and talked freely about his continuing love for the game.

Is that how a football coach says goodby?

“Every coach I’ve talked to,” Parcells said, “and I’ve talked to John Madden, Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeil, all of those guys, they say, ‘Hey, Parcells, don’t worry, you’ll know (when to quit).’

“God’s going to say, ‘Don’t do it any more, Parcells.’ And I guess once I get that feeling, I’ll know. But I love the game. I don’t like a lot of things about coaching nowadays, but I still love the game.”

Parcells, close to reaching the coaching plateau of Walsh, Noll and Shula, loves the kind of grunt-and-gesture communication he has with veterans such as Ottis Anderson, who gave a hilarious rendition of an inaudible discussion with Parcells at Anderson’s news conference Monday.

“Maybe if you’ve got a wife, you’d understand how it works,” Anderson said, smiling, after mumbling and moving his hands around for a few minutes of demonstration. “It’s that sign-language type of thing, and you get the point.”

Parcells, 49, has such a good relationship with Anderson, 33, that Anderson joked Monday that he would be “insulted” if he wasn’t left unprotected by the Giants Feb. 1. Then, the Super Bowl’s most valuable player gave a long explanation of why the Giants had no choice but to keep him off their list of 37 protected players and said he would probably get no takers--”I’m too old”--and return happily to Parcells and the Giants. “O.J., he’s one of my guys,” Parcells said. “Good thing I didn’t get him 10 years ago. He’d be in a casket by now. I’d have run him to death.”

Parcells loves the competition, the on-field physical and mental dueling highlighted by the Giants’ ability to stop Buffalo’s offense by maintaining possession on time-devouring drives.

He loves the drama, the nervousness, and ultimately, the feeling of victory when defeat is a whisper away. “I’ll tell you, that feeling of running out of that tunnel yesterday, I can’t explain it. . . . It’s euphoria,” Parcells said. “And winning dramatically like that the last two weeks, it’s better than anything.”

Sunday, the Giants had to wait until the final seconds, until Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field-goal attempt went wide right. Last week, the Giants had to wait until the final seconds, until the Giants’ Matt Bahr kicked through the game-winner.

Monday, Parcells said that this Super Bowl title was far sweeter than the one after the 1986 season, because the first time neither he nor his team knew what it meant. Does that mean a third would be even better?

“I am going to to sit down and see where I’m at and talk with our people, and we’ll see what’s going on after that,” Parcells said. “Everything that’s been written about me (leaving) is a fabrication. They’ve made it up. There’s no basis for any of (the rumors). I haven’t talked to anyone in any field.”

One thing Parcells will have to address is his quarterback situation now that 29-year-old career backup Jeff Hostetler has a Super Bowl title and 35-year-old starter Phil Simms should be injury-free for the 1991 training camp.

But there is no quarterback controversy, Parcells said.

“No, I’ve got two pretty good quarterbacks,” Parcells said. “That’s not a quarterback controversy. I’ll make an announcement about it before training camp, like I always do. That doesn’t mean that the quarterback job is wide open heading into training camp.

“But quite obviously, Jeff Hostetler has earned a tremendous amount of consideration. But, hey, I’ve got a great veteran quarterback in Phillip Simms, and he’s one of my guys. We were 10-0 with Phillip Simms.”

How will the Giants avoid the kind of collapse that befell them after their last Super Bowl victory in 1986?

“I have a different group this time than the ’86 team,” Parcells said. “Not saying better, not saying more talented, but there’s more maturity on this team than the ’86 team.”

Super Bowl Notes

The Giants’ Ottis Anderson said that instead of the most valuable player’s trip to Disneyworld, he and Disney were planning for him to visit U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. “Wouldn’t you want to go?” Anderson said. “It’s just a way of me giving something back for all that they’re giving for us.”