Playing the same tuna

Parcells' meeting with Cowboys' Jones awfully familiar

Oh, no. He's doing it again. He's making us pay attention.

Bill Parcells, the man who never met a coaching search he could resist, is back on the radar screen after Saturday's news that he spent five hours talking with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on Wednesday.

I can think of only one other time-tested holiday tradition that commands we make a fuss over a fat guy who seems to come around every year about now. The only difference being that Parcells isn't really all that jolly. And when he laughs, he looks more like a bowl full of tuna.

The question everybody's asking is whether Parcells is a candidate or just a consultant when it comes to the Cowboys and their potential head-coaching vacancy? We don't know that, of course, because come coach-hiring season, Parcells loves nothing more than to don his feather boa and ostrich plume and play the tease. It's a dance he has raised to high art.

I'm guessing that's why he and Jones met at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, where Parcells could fittingly begin his typical seesaw decision-making process in regards to the Dallas job. I'm also guessing that Parcells is going to take the plunge this time and return to the sideline, because he and Jones both have been away from the winners' circle for too long.

Parcells' name being interjected into the Dallas situation shouldn't really come as a surprise, since we've seen his entire game before when it comes to potential top-level jobs like the Cowboys'. The routine is always the same. Parcells lets it be known he's interested in coaching again, adding the all-important caveat that it has to be "in the right situation."

Bill Parcells hasn't coached since 1999. AP

That gives him the needed wiggle room to keep whatever team he's talking to on the line long enough to finally make a decision. Last season, Tampa Bay took a second trip down the primrose path with Parcells before the three-time NFL head coach told the Bucs he couldn't make the proper long-term commitment to win in their case.

After jilting the Bucs, Parcells said: "I'm finished coaching. There aren't going to be any more rumors about me coaching." Of course, this is the same guy who left New England after the 1996 Super Bowl season because he wanted more control over personnel decisions than Patriots owner Bob Kraft was willing to give him.

"If I'm going to be asked to cook the meal, I'd like to be able to pick the groceries," Parcells said famously. How will Parcells jive that sentiment with life in Dallas, where last we checked, Jones still does most of the grocery shopping? Well let's just say that their coexistence will be based on their mutual need to succeed.

The most definite thing we can take from Saturday's news is that it's not a good development for current Cowboys head coach Dave Campo. If I were Campo, I'd remember that if one looks like a lame duck and quacks like a lame duck, he's probably got webbed feet.

The Parcells-Jones summit may be merely the latest in the former coach's series of ego-building job flirtations. Or Jones could have been just kissing the ring, hoping to pick Parcells' brain about the best available head-coaching talent. Whatever the intent, one should assume the outcome at his own risk.

If you don't believe us, just ask the Bucs.

Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.

 

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