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Pinch hitter Parcells may consider coaching Jets again if he is asked
Posted: Tuesday January 04, 2000 07:20 PM
Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King discussed Bill Belichick's resignation from the New York Jets with CNN/SI anchor Mark Viviano: Mark Viviano: So Bill Parcells quits, then Bill Belichick quits. Let's go back to Parcells. What's up with him now, Peter? Peter King: I just got off the phone with Parcells and he paused for a long time when I asked him if there was any chance he'd coach the Jets this fall. He said to me, "Look, I don't want to even leave that door open but I have told John Hess [the son of late owner Leon Hess] that I will stand by the football team." Now let me translate: I think that if John Hess and/or the new owners come to Bill Parcells and ask him stridently to please coach the team for one more year during this transition period, he definitely will consider doing that. Viviano: This is quite a scenario. What is the league's stance on all of this? Will the NFL have anything to say about what's going on with the Jets? King: At 5 p.m. Tuesday afternoon the NFL sent out a memo to every team in the league saying that it had reviewed the contract that Belichick had with the New York Jets and this contract makes him an exclusive employee of the Jets as long as Parcells is not the coach of the Jets. Now understand, when Parcells was the coach of the Jets, if another team called, they had permission to talk to Belichick. But in the event that Parcells left the organization, contractually -- it's written in Belichick's contract -- Belichick would have to stay and coach the team or coach for no one. When I talked to Parcells -- Parcells was taken by absolute shock by this -- he said, just like Jets president Steve Gutman said, "We have reiterated this with Bill Belichick four or five times over the years." And it sounded to me, listening to Belichick in his press conference Tuesday, that he's fully aware of this and that he knows that the only team he could willingly work for is the New York Jets. The real question now is, what happens if a team calls the Jets and asks for permission to talk to Belichick, and the Jets then say, "Well, we'd have to talk about compensation." I've been told by a source inside the NFL that the New York Jets would ask for, at the very least, the same compensation that the Patriots received when Parcells went to the Jets. The Jets had to pay four draft choices -- a 1, 2, 3 and 4 -- over a three-year span. Would this happen here? I think if Bob Kraft wants Belichick, he's going to have to provide compensation as least as much as he received when Parcells went to the Jets. Viviano: Belichick painted quite the picture of uncertainity relative to the Jets. How unstable is this franchise right now? King: I honestly think this: I don't think that this is one of the more unstable franchises in the league. Whoever buys this team, whether it be Woody Johnson -- the Johnson & Johnson heir -- or Charles Dolan, the Cablevision magnate, is going to pay more than $600 million for the team. It's not going to dent their personal fortune very much. So I don't believe in any way, shape or form, that whoever owns this team is going to come in and ask to start pinching pennies. Now, what Belichick is very concerned with is very simple. He wants to know that over the next three years, not only is this team going to be able to be competitive, but also that he, Belichick, is going to be making all the decisions. And like he inferred Tuesday, if Belichick comes into this situation and a new owner comes in and says, "Hey, I'd kind of like to have Charley Casserly come in and kind of oversee the football operations," Belichick is conerned that he's not going to have all the power then, and Belichick has stayed with the Jets in order to have that power. Now, is that a realistic possibility? I'm not sure it is. But in Belichick's mind, I think it is.
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