DAVIE, Fla., Dec. 27 — Admitting that “I can’t get the game out of my system,” Bill Parcells came to South Florida on Thursday and began taking the first small steps toward reversing the fortunes of the woebegone Miami Dolphins, a 1-14 team that hasn’t been to the playoffs since the 2001 season and hasn’t won a Super Bowl since January 1974.
Parcells accepted the position of executive vice president of football operations last week, and arrived at the team’s facility in time to watch practice for the final game of the season at home Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. He said he had a brief chat with Coach Cam Cameron, but will make no immediate decisions on the future of his head coach, general manager or any other front-office personnel.
During a 25-minute news conference, his first meeting with the local media began at 6 p.m., just in time to be the lead story on the local news on every Miami television station. He was purposely vague on most issues, but insisted that at age 66, he has no intention of coaching the football team, or serving as the general manager.
Team owner Wayne Huizenga, who attended the news conference but did not speak with the media, signed Parcells to a four-year contract that reportedly will pay him in the range of $3 million a year to “oversee the structure” of the organization and get everyone on the same philosophical page, Parcells said.
“I’m just trying to be a good team member and put a structure in place that will serve the Dolphins well now and in the long term,” Parcells said. “Philosophical compatibility is something that has to be discussed. I don’t view myself as a narrow-minded person. But along the lines of player acquisition, it’s important that the whole organization be compatible.
“I would hope that I could develop a relationship with people here that will allow us to bounce ideas off one another and hopefully it will be beneficial to the team with the experiences I’ve had in the NFL and with various franchises.”
Those experiences include being the only coach ever to take four different teams to the playoffs, including two Super Bowl championships with the New York Giants and a Super Bowl appearance with the New England Patriots.
Parcells coached the Dallas Cowboys to the playoffs in 2006, and also helped build a Dallas team that is now 13-2, the NFC East champion and the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Sixteen of the Cowboys’ 22 starters this year were acquired during Parcells’s four years in Dallas, and 36 of the 53 players on the 2007 roster joined the club while Parcells coached the team.
Parcells said he met Cameron, now completing his first season as the Dolphins’ head coach, last year and had heard good things about him from former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight, one of his best friends since both coached at West Point in the 1970s. Cameron played basketball for Knight at Indiana and also considers him a good friend.
Parcells indicated he had done some business in the past with current Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller, but did not know him well. Mueller is completing his third season as the team’s general manager.
The Dolphins will have the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, and Parcells said it was far too soon to determine whether he will keep the choice, or try to use it to trade down and acquire more picks.
“This pick has developed into a very economically consequential decision,” he said. “If you make the pick at that spot and you’re wrong, it’s a real bad thing for your team for quite awhile. If we keep the pick, we’ll try to pick a player who will be a factor for an extended period of time.”
Parcells said he would “set a prototypical standard for each position and try not to make too many exceptions in that regard.” He also said he’d be looking for “good character people. I don’t want bad characters on the team. I don’t want any problem children.”
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