Do YOU remember Bill Parcells debut?

[brownelvis54]

Funny thing, Bill Parcells Head Coaching debut was in 1983 against the Rams, who drafted Erik Dickerson and his debut was against the Giants defense. Do anyone of you remember the game? Anyone here remember going to that game?

New York Giants (1979, 1981–1990)

In 1979, Parcells accepted an offer to become the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants under head coach Ray Perkins but, before the season started, he resigned and took a job with a land development company in Colorado.[19] While living in Colorado, Parcells became a season ticket holder with the Denver Broncos. Parcells called it the most miserable year of his life.[7]

Feeling dissatisfied with his life away from football, Parcells returned to the sport in 1980 as the linebackers coach of the New England Patriots under Ron Erhardt.[7]

The following season, Parcells was approached once again by Perkins to join the Giants' staff as an assistant coach, and Parcells accepted the offer. As defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, he was allowed to change the team's 4–3 defense to a 3–4 system.[7] When Perkins announced on December 15, 1982, that he was leaving the Giants at the end of the season to become head coach and athletic director at the University of Alabama, the Giants announced that Parcells would succeed him as head coach.[7]

When Parcells took over in 1983, the team had posted just one winning season in the previous ten years. In his first year, he made a controversial decision to bench Phil Simms in favor of Scott Brunner due to Brunner's success in leading the Giants to the 1981 post-season. Also, Simms had missed the entire 1982 season in addition to the latter part of 1981. Brunner struggled and Parcells went back to Simms in Week 6, but Simms broke his thumb and missed the rest of 1983. The result was a disastrous 3–12–1 season during which the Giants surreptitiously offered Parcells' job to University of Miami head coach Howard Schnellenberger after a week 14 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals; however, Schnellenberger declined, and Parcells remained as head coach.[20]

After this dismal first season, Parcells made a finally healthy Simms the starter again for 1984 and replaced half the roster. The team's record improved to 9–7 and 10–6 over the next two years, and earned them their first back-to-back playoff appearances since 1961–1963. In 1986, he led the Giants to the first of two Super Bowls. In the 1986 season, the Giants compiled a franchise-best 14–2 record and the first of three division titles. Parcells, whose stifling 3–4 defense (known as the Big Blue Wrecking Crew) led by Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, Harry Carson, and Leonard Marshall, and an offense under the direction of Phil Simms, knocked off the San Francisco 49ers 49–3, and the Washington Redskins 17–0, in the playoffs before routing the Denver Broncos, 39–20, in Super Bowl XXI. Parcells is credited as the first coach to be doused with Gatorade at the end of a Super Bowl, which led to a Super Bowl tradition. While there are some claims that Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka had been doused a year earlier,[21] NFL Films president Steve Sabol has stated that he can find no evidence to support it in any footage he has reviewed and that he believes the tradition started with Parcells and Jim Burt.[22]

Following the Super Bowl win, Parcells was courted by the Atlanta Falcons to become the head coach and general manager of the franchise. However, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle would not allow Parcells to break his contract with the Giants and he stayed in New York.[23]

Parcells led the Giants to a second Super Bowl in 1990. The Giants began the 1990 season 10–0, but lost Phil Simms to injury late in the season and finished 13–3. Playing with a back-up quarterback in Jeff Hostetler and a 33-year-old veteran running back in Ottis Anderson, the Giants convincingly defeated the Chicago Bears in the divisional playoff, 31–3. They followed that up with a dramatic, come-from-behind fashion over San Francisco, 15–13, in the NFC Championship game on a last-second 42-yard field goal by Matt Bahr, set up by a Roger Craig fumble caused by nose tackle Erik Howard. Super Bowl XXV proved equally exciting as the Giants used tough defense and a ball-control and power-running Erhardt – Perkins style offense to stop the Buffalo Bills, 20–19, whose own last-second 47-yard field goal attempt by Scott Norwood missed wide right. Parcells retired from football after Super Bowl XXV due to health problems.

During his coaching tenure, the Giants had secured three division titles (1986, 1989, 1990), had only two losing seasons (the Giants went 6–9 during the strike year of 1987) and tallied an 8–3 playoff record. Parcells, along with former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, both made the NFL playoffs five times as Giants head coach, and the two Super Bowl titles they each won with the Giants occurred in their fourth and eighth seasons with the franchise, respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Parcells

[brownelvis54]

MOST of the GAME

[LennG]

Great memories. Thanks

[Bob In PA]

BrownE: Great work.  Much appreciated.  Bob

[BluesCruz]

I don't remember his debut, but I didn't meet him in person in training camp, up at Pleasantville and both he and Phil Sims couldn't have been nicer. I spent about 10 minutes playing catch with Phil mostly him throwing what I do remember is the time parcels took Jim Burt out of a game and Burt While screaming at parcels shoved him out onto the field.  Burt was the character

[BluesCruz]

Parcels had a two tier system one for high performers who could get away with just about anything and the festivus for the rest of us

[TDToomer]

How many combined turnovers in that game? Holy Moly.