The Man in Blak

Considering the out-of-conference records of the NFC playoff teams to the AFC playoff teams, it's not really that far-fetched: NFC Playoff Teams vs. AFC Bears: 2-2 Saints: 1-3 Eagles: 1-3 Seahawks: 2-2 Cowboys: 3-1 Giants: 1-3 ------- Packers: 1-3 Panthers: 2-2 Combined record against AFC: 10-14 Combined record against AFC (including teams that barely missed): 13-19 _____________________________________________ AFC Playoff Teams vs. NFC Colts: 3-1 Patriots: 4-0 Chargers: 4-0 Ravens: 3-1 Chiefs: 4-0 Jets: 3-1 ------- Broncos: 1-3 Bengals: 2-2 Combined record against NFC: 21-3 Combined record against NFC (including teams that barely missed): 24-8 And that's just taking a look at the playoff teams. The AFC dominated the interconference play as a whole, piling up a 40-24 record against the NFC over the regular season: AFC East: 12-4 AFC South: 9-7 AFC North: 9-7 AFC West: 10-6

I didn't watch much of college football this year until the bowl games - how much did Lane Kiffin change the USC offensive scheme that he inherited from Norm Chow?

The issues with Kraft were related around a desire to be a fully-fledged GM, but most coaches would normally have some input over selections made in the draft. I will concede that the extent of that input can probably be disputed, though. I don't know that much about the Patriots infrastructure at that time to specifically gauge how much input Parcells had, but I would sincerely doubt that he was left in the dark. Some clarification regarding this point, now that I've found some articles that shed some light on the Parcells/Patriots situation. This feature, which was written last year, reveals that Parcells had signed a five-year deal with coach and GM priveleges. What's noteworthy, though, is that Kraft was not the owner of the Patriots when Parcells was hired, as Kraft purchased the Patriots roughly one year after Parcells signed on with New England. Also worth mentioning is the state of the franchise at the time; in the three years prior to the hire, the New England Patriots were 9-39, earning a 2-14 record in the previous season. Over the next two seasons with Kraft as the owner, Parcells would return mixed results: he would make the playoffs in his second year with the team on a 10-6, only to lose to Cleveland (and, ironically, Bill Belichick, in what was BB's only playoff win as the Browns' HC). The next season, 1995, would not go as smoothly, as Drew Bledsoe regressed and a young defense struggled to keep opponents out of the end zone. Though Parcells had a well-established track record of success, there were rumblings that he was having issues handling player personnel decisions as well as coaching. Kraft stripped Parcells of his responsibilities as general manager before the 1996 season, appointing Bobby Grier to be his director of player personnel and, in the process, really pissing Parcells off. An incident in the 1996 war room, involving a dispute between Parcells and Kraft over the Patriots' first pick, would widen the gap even further between the coach and the new owner. The decision to reduce Parcells' role in the organization seemed to yield an immediate turnaround, as the Patriots would capture their first AFC East title in ten years with a 11-5 record in 1996. New England would steamroll through the rest of the AFC en route to meeting Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXI, but the game was hardly the biggest story; six days before the Super Bowl as Will McDonough of the Boston Globe broke the news that Bill Parcells was going to be stepping down as the head coach of the Patriots after the season. New England would go onto lose to the Packers and the whole Parcells/Belichick saga between the Patriots and the Jets would begin. Parcells was 32-32, exactly .500 over his four years with New England, with one rebuilding year (his first), two playoff appearances, and a disappointing 1995 campaign. To take a look at his impact on the personnel over that period, here's a look at his draft picks during his stint in New England (including Grier's 1996 season, just for the sake of reference): Notables from the 1993 Draft Drew Bledsoe Chris Slade Vincent Brisby Troy Brown Notables from the 1994 Draft Willie McGinest Notables from the 1995 Draft Ty Law Ted Johnson Curtis Martin Notables from the 1996 Draft (Bobby Grier) Terry Glenn Lawyer Milloy Tedy Bruschi Adam Vinatieri (an undrafted free agent) Martin, Slade and Brisby contributed more to the 1996 AFC Championship run and Bledsoe and Glenn's impact on the 2001 is understated (at best), but a surprising amount of the "core" of the 2001 Patriots comes from this era, particularly the defense. Grier's first year on the job was particularly fruitful, but Parcells does get a bit of a bonus for grabbing Curtis Martin, who might have turned out to be an impact player for a long time in New England, had Parcells stayed around. A couple of thoughts about the history of Parcells with New England: 1. I completely forgot about Parcells standing up Tampa Bay to go to NBC, and doing it after a handshake agreement, no less. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for his character. 2. The Parcells/Kraft situation was probably rigged to explode from the get-go - Parcells was not Kraft's guy and, given how ambitious Kraft has been with the franchise, it would be hard to believe that he would have settled around for anybody, let alone a guy like Parcells that was bordering on insubordination through his final year there. 3. Having read more about the soap opera that would unfold between Parcells, Belichick, and Kraft over the next five years, I'm not sure there's much that you can really say positively about any of it. I knew it was bad, but never that bad. All three guys come off with black marks, in my opinion. 4. Considering points #1 and #3, I'm willing to concede that I glossed over a fair amount of Parcells' character when making my initial argument. I think, on the merits of his success on the field, Parcells is still a top all-time coach. I would take him over Schottenheimer, over Cowher, over virtually anybody in the era, save for probably Belichick. (That Belichick inherited so much talent from this era is another discussion entirely.) Overall, though, I can see where there's a lot of distrust towards the guy and, ultimately, a lot of irony surrounding his tenure in Dallas. What a crazy career.

It's not quite Scoop Jackson's assertion that everybody who criticizes Dusty Baker is a racist, but it's closer than I'd ever prefer to be. Maybe The Worst Article Ever (Non-Racist Division).

Point taken - I always associate Shula's success with the Dolphins, but I did forget that he did take the Baltimore Colts to the Super Bowl as well. For one, having a coaching record above .500 for 176 games with three different teams isn't really a bad thing. Parcells had three losing seasons (out of eleven) over that time period. Secondly, consider - once again - where the teams were before he landed there. The Jets were unbelievably bad and he went 29-19 with them in three years. The Patriots almost had plane tickets stamped for St. Louis before he took them to the Super Bowl in 1996. He finished above .500 in three of his four seasons with the Cowboys, inheriting very little (if anything) in the way of talent from the Dave Campo-era. I'll admit that saying that he's a Top 3 or Top 5 head coach may be a tough argument, but I think a lot of people are drastically underrating his accomplishments. EDIT: It'll probably get quoted anyway, but let's snip out the implied ad hominem.

The issues with Kraft were related around a desire to be a fully-fledged GM, but most coaches would normally have some input over selections made in the draft. I will concede that the extent of that input can probably be disputed, though. I don't know that much about the Patriots infrastructure at that time to specifically gauge how much input Parcells had, but I would sincerely doubt that he was left in the dark.

This doesn't make any sense to me at all. You're going to penalize Parcells for having success with multiple teams, but laud Cowher and Belichick for being able to leverage continuity into sustained success? The former would be "revered" as a Marty-esque underachiever, if not for last year's Super Bowl win, and makes for an odd namedrop in this kind of conversation; the latter has had a ridiculous run of success, but has achieved it with a number of former Parcells draft picks. I understand that the current climate of NFL economics, with free agency and the salary cap, make it more difficult to establish continuity from year to year, but I fail to see how that would somehow taint Parcells' run as a coach. Wouldn't more roster instability make his success that much more improbable to sustain, especially across multiple stops on the NFL map?

The Jets were 4-28 in the two seasons before Parcells came on board and, in two years, they were in the AFC Championship Game. As I said, the jury is still out, but Dallas had three straight 5-11 seasons before Parcells was named the head coach and they went 10-6 in his first year with Quincy Carter and Chad Hutchinson at QB. If Romo doesn't choke away the hold in the Seahawks game, who's to say how far the Cowboys would have went this year. His disagreements with Kraft are certainly a bit of a mark against his integrity, but it sounds a bit silly to say that he hasn't done anything with the non-Giants stints, when the pieces that he drafted for New England are still playing a critical role in their run of success right now and the other two teams were in considerably better shape than when he got them.

He's got two Super Bowls, he's one of three coaches (Reeves and Holmgren, I believe) to take two different franchises to the Super Bowl, and he's the only coach to lead four different teams to the playoffs. He basically rescued the Patriots from the brink of relocation (drafting Bledsoe, McGinest, Ty Law and Troy Brown in the process), completely turned the Jets around and, while the jury is still out on the Cowboys going forward, I'd say he did a pretty remarkable job there, given what he inherited. Noll and Landry are spectacular coaches, but they sustained their success in an era where there was little roster turnover. To a limited extent, the same idea can apply for Shula (who was at the tail-end of his career when Parcells began his NFL coaching tenure). With all of the success that he's had with so many different teams, I would be inclined to favor Parcells over those three coaches and probably Bill Walsh as well.

They've got two weeks for coverage of the Super Bowl. The story on Parcells' retirement broke today, so I can't really blame them for following the breaking news - besides, I'm sure we'll see more terrible analysis of the championship games later tonight. I could be misreading the situation, but Parcells was looking pretty haggard towards the end of the year, like the years were finally catching up with him. I'm not sure he could land in a better situation than what he would have in Dallas, even if Owens were to stick around.

Even if you consider that Parcells used to be an analyst for ESPN, I think the coverage is justified - Parcells is probably one of the top five, maybe three coaches of all time and there's definitely a sense out there that this is the "final retirement."

Well, Cornell probably should have packed it in after Superunknown, ultimately. I wonder what Kim Thayil is up to these days?

Or even Trent Dilfer, right? And that's four-time, four-time, four-time Pro Bowler Rich Gannon that you're smearing with that statement.

Always a fun word.

You could always ditch the ubiquitous "Comments That Don't Warrant A Thread" moniker for most of the folders, call the thread "_____ Chatter" (where you fill the blank with the respective folder) and cycle out a new thread every month or so. Something like "Sports Chatter - February", perhaps. Leave the original thread in the flaming folder alone, though - it ain't hurting anything in there.

It was on the Sega Genesis Collection that released in the winter, wasn't it. Whoops.

Not that "Three Stories" isn't great, but you could have always cited "No Reason" (the second season finale), if you wanted to throw in a House episode. Great end to the season and a bit of a turnaround for the series, which was starting to lose its touch.

According to the listings at Wikipedia, Comix Zone, Gain Ground, and Bonanza Bros. will be flanking Zelda on the VC release this week. I've never played Bonanza Bros., but the other two games are nice releases for the VC. Comix Zone is a solid beat 'em up with a neat concept: if you didn't catch it with the Sega Genesis Collection that released in November (thanks for the correction) or unlock it from Sonic Mega Collection Plus, here's another chance to check it out. Gain Ground isn't exactly a classic, but you could definitely consider it an "overlooked" title - as far as I know, it hasn't been re-released, outside of a crappy TVPlay compilation, so it's a decent entry as well.

The announcement doesn't surprise me too much, given how ragged and truly exhausted he appeared to be towards the end. I can't see him coming back to a team in any on-field capacity and, really, it wouldn't surprise me if he took a break from the sport entirely.

Took Brainwashed on a spin for the commute this morning and, initially, it's not striking me as the ****1/2 near-masterpiece that AllMusic fell in love with. I like "Rising Sun" and "Looking For My Life", but "P2 Vatican Blues" is an absolute dud and the rest of the album doesn't impress on the first listen. Here's to giving it a second go-round on the way back, I guess.

It's interesting that the 2002 Super Bowl crept into the conversation last week, because the Bears/Colts matchup has a lot of similarities to the Oakland/Tampa Bay showdown, with the Colts leveraging a tremendous offense built around a Pro Bowl quarterback and two outstanding wide receivers against the Bears, who have the nastiest defense in the league. The key difference, as alluded to in the other NFL discussion thread, is that there's no "Jon Gruden factor" to put the Colts at a significant disadvantage; there is certainly a familiarity there, since Lovie Smith (as a linebackers coach) helped Tony Dungy define the Tampa Bay variant on the Cover 2 defense that made the Buccaneers so successful, but nothing on the level of knowledge that Gruden held over the Oakland offense. My initial thoughts are that the Bears can win this in a rout if they play up to their potential, but that's been the million dollar question about this team all year: against the Colts offense on neutral ground, the Bears may not be able to afford to let Rex Grossman pile up a 5/20 stat line at the helm. And I know it's hard to fathom, but remember how close the Saints managed to keep the game until the Brees safety in the second half - due to their red zone inefficiency and injuries on defense, the Bears are very capable of letting a team hang around.

Dallas Clark with the Tecmo Bowl zig-zag there.

I think Gaffney's heel was out of bounds before he elevated for the catch, but there's no clear angle to use for reviewing that and the pushout was so blatant anyway that it wasn't getting overturned. Great catch by Gaffney and the Colts probably shouldn't have burned that timeout there.

And Harrison brought his mittens to the dome, as he lets a beautiful deep bomb from Manning bounce off of his hands.

For fuck's sake, that play might as well be the Ty Law Memorial Option Pass. If Manning's going to make the same idiotic mistakes every time they play the Patriots, he deserves any and all criticism that's going to come crashing down from this game. Also, bonus points for Marvin Harrison (if that's who it was) doing his best Randy Moss and just sitting and watching Samuel pick that off.