Thursday, December 20, 2007

Quick Thoughts on Parcells

I was perfectly happy with the idea of Bill Parcells coming in as the VP for Football Operations for the Falcons. Sure, hiring Parcells would make Arthur Blank's protestations about Bobby Petrino look foolish, since Blank's next move would have been to hire the similarly itinerant Parcells. That said, Parcells has generally left teams better off than he found them. He's a good talent evaluator and that takes primary importance this year because of the bevy of picks the Falcons are going to have in April. Blank needs to bring in someone who can analyze the team in short order and then come up with a smart drafting strategy (starting with the determination of whether the Falcons have so many holes that they need to trade down out of their top five pick to acquire depth). Parcells would have been that guy.

The only reservation I had was that Parcells would also bring in a protege as head coach and start drafting a team to meet his specific style. Most specifically, I was worried that he would bring in a 3-4 defensive coach, the team would give up a bunch of defensive pieces for 50 cents on the dollar, and then they would spend their draft picks and free agent dollars looking for specific 3-4 parts. If Parcells is only going to be around for a few years, then changing the team's style and doing a wholesale changeout of the front seven is a bad idea.

In any event, Parcells simply used the Falcons to squeeze more money out of the Dolphins, so it's all water under the bridge. The search continues.

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