Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [93]
“In the rain,” Belichick said afterward, “when you put the ball on the ground, it’s tough to handle. It skids. This time, it just didn’t work out. But if the same situation came up again, I’d make the same recommendation.”
That proactive, original, even stubborn, thinking would serve Belichick well once Bill Parcells promoted him to defensive coordinator for the 1985 season. That year, the pass-rushing trio of Lawrence Taylor (13 sacks), Leonard Marshall (15.5 sacks) and George Martin (10 sacks) each had career years. During Belichick’s first two seasons of stewardship, the Giants defense yielded just 16.2 points and topped the NFC in sacks. And in the second half of Super Bowl XXI, Belichick’s defense thoroughly shut down John Elway, one of the key factors in New York’s victory.
That outstanding unit lost several of its stars after the 1988 season, however. George Martin and Hall of Famer Harry Carson retired. Former Pro Bowl defensive end Jim Burt was let go, as was starting safety Kenny Hill. Although Taylor, Marshall, Pepper Johnson, and Carl Banks remained, the defense needed to be rebuilt for 1989. Parcells trusted Belichick with the task, and he rewarded the head coach. The Giants surrendered the fewest points in the NFC.
“He’s always given me the job to do and let me do it,” Belichick said near the end of that season. “He’s let me instill my personality in the defense, as opposed to being his clone and relaying everything he would want done.”
On the surface, Parcells and Belichick were two very different men. Parcells’ size and gruff demeanor instantly projected confidence and command. Physically, he diminished the five-foot, ten-inch, 190-pound Belichick. And Belichick’s aloof, often quiet, nature didn’t often inspire his players. Early on, according to George Martin, Belichick had “a terrible bedside manner.” Several of his players referred to him as “Doom.”
“They talked about him as being gruff, about having no personality; they talked about him as being coldhearted. None of that’s true,” Don Gleisner remembered. “I believe for some reason, he wanted to keep that gruff image, whether that would help him or not.”
“Bill puts a great emphasis—as did his father, as I did, and I think I learned it from Steve Belichick—on the same principles that apply in business, apply in football. You’ve got to have discipline; you’ve got to have integrity. You’ve got to have loyalty. You’ve got to work hard. And those were all things that were ground into Bill, and ground into me. And I think we got them from Steve.”
Bill Parcells shared those same principles. Both coaches also desperately wanted to win, and they knew that superb defense would achieve that. But differences in personality suggested they did not get along.
“Parcells would challenge Belichick to make a decision on anything from strategy to how to handle an injury with the media,” the Newark Star-Ledger’s Jerry Izenberg later said.
The catch was, if Belichick’s decision didn’t work out, Parcells would say, “You’re fired.” He put him under a lot of pressure and fired him about four or five times during that period.
I recall one game in Dallas when Belichick came out with some fancy blitz package on first down, and Parcells said, “What the hell are you doing?” And Belichick said, “I’m giving them a different look.” And Parcells said, “No you’re not, you’re showing these 76,000 people how smart you are. You’re being a circus act.” Parcells then muttered, “You need those X’s and O’s guys during the week, but on the sidelines, they’re not worth a damn.”
Later, as opposing head coaches, Parcells and Belichick faced one another five times. Fittingly,