ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 1997 TAG: 9702050097
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
BILL BELICHICK WILL KEEP the Jets' sidelines warm next season for the team's new ``consultant,'' Bill Parcells.
If they couldn't get him as coach, the New York Jets got Bill Parcells as a consultant - a contractural end run that the New England Patriots decried as a ``transparent farce'' and vowed to challenge.
Under the Jets' plan, longtime Parcells aide Bill Belichick fills in as coach until Parcells takes over as coach and chief of football operations at midnight on Feb.1, 1998.
The Jets would get the benefit of Parcells' football wisdom and be able to implement the program that brought Super Bowl victories to the New York Giants in 1987 and 1991 and the AFC championship to New England last season - and still keep the No. 1 pick in this year's draft.
Or maybe not.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue already has forbidden the Jets from offering Parcells a football job in 1997 without the Patriots' permission.
``This so-called consulting agreement is a transparent farce,'' the Patriots said in a statement, `` ... the latest in a series of acts by the Jets and Bill Parcells which further demonstrates it has been their intention all along to have Bill Parcells become head coach of the Jets for the '97 season.''
Parcells insisted, however, the consultant's position would be a matter of advice, not action, and therefore not a violation of his contract with the Patriots.
``I'm not allowed to partake in anything on the field, and I am not under any illusions on that, and I will not have any final decisions on personnel,'' Parcells said via telephone at a crowded news conference. ``I will just act in an advisory capacity.''
He said the Jets received approval from the NFL for their plan, but a league statement said ``the Jets were neither denied nor given permission to make a consulting agreement with Parcells for 1997.''
Tagliabue, who was in San Diego dealing with potential problems with next year's Super Bowl site, will be asked to look into the matter by the Patriots.
If Tagliabue rules in favor of the Jets - and unless the Jets can negotiate an earlier release for Parcells from his agreement with the Patriots - Parcells would be exactly what he was during Tuesday's news conference: a disembodied voice, offering advice but not on hand to make the big decisions. That chore will be handled by Belichick, who will coach the Jets next season and, quite possibly, in the future after Parcells decides he's had enough.
``I know it's going to work and I am in it for the long haul,'' said Belichick, who was 36-44 in five seasons as Cleveland Browns coach before joining the Patriots as an assistant last year. ``I'm here to fill a role and when my role changes, other people's roles will change, too.
``I've been a head coach and you can't do it all. You need other people around you to help, no matter what the position.''
Parcells' participation in the news conference via telephone gave the proceedings an almost comical edge. Of course, the way the Jets have played recently - they were 4-28 under Kotite - has been laughable.
But the Jets might have topped themselves with this latest ploy.
The only team not to win any kind of championship - division, conference or league - since the merger was completed in 1970, the Jets are the last team to hire a coach in this strange three-month period in which 11 jobs have changed hands. They are the only one to hire two of them.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Bill Belichick (left) and Jets president Steveby CNBGutman will hold the fort in 1997 until Bill Parcells arrives in
'98. KEYWORDS: FOOTBALL