Parcells regrets way he left Patriots
Former NFL coach Bill Parcells recently told USA Today that he regrets the way his relationship ended with the New England Patriots as he prepares for his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction.
Parcells, who will be inducted at Canton, Ohio on Aug. 3, left the team on bad terms with owner Bob Kraft after guiding it to the Super Bowl in January 1997.
"I regret leaving New England," Parcells said. "Had we done things differently. ... I had a good young team there. I hated to leave that team, because I knew what we could do.
"I was absolutely too headstrong. And he might have been a little headstrong, too. I think both Kraft and myself, retrospectively, would have done things a little differently."
Parcells was replaced by Pete Carroll, who coached the Patriots for three seasons before Bill Belichick took over in 2000.
Under Belichick, the Patriots have advanced to five Super Bowls, winning three of them. He was coach of the New York Jets for just one day before bolting for New England when Parcells departed.
Parcells and Kraft have since made up. The two were in a power struggle over having the final say in football decisions. Parcells famously said, "If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries."
Kraft said their truce occurred 10 years ago.
"At a Super Bowl, Bill was standing there as I approached, and he just said to me, 'If I had to do it all over again. I would have done things differently.' And I said, 'So would I,' " Kraft recalled.
After the Patriots lost to the Green Bay Packers, Parcells took a consultant job with the Jets and soon became head coach. The Jets had to send four draft picks to the Patriots as compensation.
The two clashed over egos. Parcells had won two Super Bowls as coach of the New York Giants and Kraft was a naive, new owner.
"When I bought the team in 1994 ... he was coaching year to year, making personnel decisions," Kraft recalled. "He used to drive down to (his home in) Jupiter, Fla., at the end of the year and he'd say he'd decide whether he was coming back to coach. That didn't inspire confidence in me."
Parcells coached the Jets through 1999, then the Dallas Cowboys from 2003-06, and was the Miami Dolphins' executive vice president of football operations 2008-10. He was 172-130-1 in the regular season and 11-8 in the playoffs as a coach.
