Jon Gruden is about to get $100 million to coach the Oakland Raiders and keep coaching them when they move to Las Vegas in a couple of years. And maybe you have to look at a crazy number like that, in light of the reports about current palace intrigue in Foxboro, Mass., with the Patriots and wonder what Bill Belichick would be worth on the open market, where Belichick sure isn’t for now but, who knows, maybe not forever.
You can also understand why there was the immediate suggestion — or pipe dream — around here that the Giants should be in play for Belichick. After all, it was only 20 years ago that Bill Parcells was on his way out of Foxboro, and his job coaching for Patriots owner Robert Kraft, even when he had the Patriots on their way to a Super Bowl.
There was a ton of palace intrigue then, with what turned out to be rather historic implications, because Parcells leaving the Patriots when he did and the way he did set off a chain of events that eventually put Belichick in Foxboro, where he got with Kraft and got with Tom Brady and produced a dynasty in the modern world of the NFL that will likely never be matched.
Parcells went to the Jets. Belichick became his genius top sergeant, same as he was when Parcells coached the Giants. Kraft replaced Parcells with Pete Carroll, whose record with the Patriots over three years was 27-21. Not bad. Not good enough. Carroll had also coached the Jets once. Maybe you’re detecting a pattern. The Jets seem to lead the league in Super Bowl coaches who never actually coach them to the Super Bowl.
Parcells stepped down as Jets coach. The line of succession was set up for Belichick to take over. Except he only became the “HC” of the “NYJ” — as he famously said at the time — for a day, and before he was on his way to Foxboro and into history. Nobody will ever know for sure what happened when Belichick decided he wasn’t going to coach the Jets because he saw a better opportunity with the Patriots (I wrote at the time that it was a way for him to get out from under Parcells’ shadow once and for all).
But somehow Robert Kraft, in a move that changed everything in New England even before the Patriots drafted Tom Brady, got to Belichick. Kraft clearly let Bill Belichick know that he, Kraft, was not just willing to turn over the store to him, but willing to pay whatever it took — and he did pay with draft choices — to get Belichick out of Jersey.
So the Jets did it to the Patriots once with Parcells. Later the Patriots did it to the Jets with Belichick, who went to New England and only became the greatest pro football coach of all time. You can see why so many around here have jumped, and real high, at the idea of the Giants making some kind of play for Belichick.
It would have brought a lot of things full circle, especially the time Parcells was explaining leaving the Patriots with one more famous line from him:
“It’s just like a friend of mine told me: ‘If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries.'”
The guy once known as the Big Tuna became the Big Get with the Jets, and before not too very long had the Jets in the lead at halftime of an AFC championship game before they lost to the Broncos. Then Vinny Testaverde got hurt in the opener the next year, and Parcells wasn’t going to take the Jets to the Super Bowl the way he had the Giants and Patriots.
Then Belichick left the Jets and became the Big Get for the Patriots (I know, all this remembering can make you lightheaded). And now, all this time later, and no matter what might ever happen with the Giants, there has to at least be a part of Belichick, even as he may be on his way to his 8th Super Bowl for Kraft and with Brady, wondering what he’s worth if a guy who won his one and only Super Bowl 14 years ago and has been in a television booth for the past eight years is worth $100 million to another NFL team.
All anybody knows for sure if they’ve read Seth Wickersham’s piece about all the drama in Foxboro is that the central assertion of the piece, one Kraft has now emphatically denied to Peter King at The MMQB, is that Belichick was forced to make a bad deal with backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo (a second-round pick for someone who is already a transformational player with the 49ers) because Brady didn’t much want Garoppolo around any longer.
For someone as brilliant as Belichick, someone always playing the long game, the deal still makes absolutely no sense, even if Kraft says it was all Belichick’s idea. But if you believe ESPN and believe that Belichick didn’t want to make that deal, then something else has come full circle with the Patriots:
The guy who replaced Parcells three years after Parcells left the Patriots for the Jets, the guy who left the Jets for the Patriots, might not think he’s still getting to pick out all the groceries in Foxboro.
Now people want the Giants to bring back Bill. Hey, it would be the biggest thing around here since the Knicks brought back Phil.
Oh, wait…
Learning the Hardaway, that kid McDaniels & weary KP . . .
– The President isn’t just a genius… he’s a stable genius!
Why can’t you snarky, cynical people see that?
Right now, today, who would make a big bet on the Knicks making the playoffs?
And while we’re on the subject:
We can debate all we want to about whether Tim Hardaway, Jr. was worth the money the Knicks spent on him.
But, man oh man, they sure do miss the guy right now.
– There is no way that the Yankees are going to open the season with two kids in their infield.
So, like, stay tuned.
I hope there is a way for the Mets to put Andrew McCutchen in the outfield at Citi Field.
– There was a time when Josh McDaniels, at 33, was supposed to be the kind of young head coaching star that Sean McVay has become in Los Angeles.
Now the next team that hires McDaniels, who is still only 41 years old, wants him to be the next McVay.
So it goes.
It is worth noting again that when Belichick coached the Browns one of his defensive coordinators was a guy named Saban.
Greatest pro coach of all time.
Greatest college coach of all time.
Same staff, same time.
– The next time the Latvian kid is feeling a little weary, he maybe should think about making that an unspoken thought.
You know who never complained very much about being tired, over all the years when he was The Man on 33rd Street?
Melo.
Even in a world where you sometimes get the idea that an unspoken thought is supposed to be against the law.
– Okay, I’m ready for the new season of “Billions.”
Even got an “Axe Capital” t-shirt as a gift for Christmas.
LaVar Ball, another stable genius, now says that both of his younger sons will finish their seasons in Lithuania.
A fact about which the rest of the world, and maybe even Lithuania, does everything except care.
The player to watch this year in men’s tennis, at least when you’re not watching Mr. Federer, is Grigor Dimitrov.
And so you know?
I’m not sure Serena plays a major until Wimbledon.
Still think Jim Harbaugh is going to end up back in the NFL, and sooner rather than later.
Giving Michael Wolff the kind of White House access Trump did?
Maybe his best decision since firing Comey.
I understand that Tom Brady’s diet/exercise regimen is supposed to make him more flexible.
And if you believe Seth Wickersham’s reporting at ESPN.com, Touchdown Tom certainly showed a ton of flexibility going around Belichick on Jimmy Garoppolo, right?
Giant pick is still about Sam
The guy we talk about now in the draft is the guy we talked about before the season, and that means Sam Darnold of USC.
The Jets were supposed to be nothing and draft Darnold.
Only it turned out to be the Giants who were nothing.
They lost a general manager along the way, and a coach. But by losing 13 games they end up with the second pick in the draft.
They should hope that the Browns, with the first pick, go for Josh Rosen of UCLA, which a lot of people think they might.
I talked to an NFL executive from the NFC North the other day, and said, “Okay, Rosen or Darnold?”
“Darnold,” the guy said, without hesitation. “The things he doesn’t do well right now, like footwork, he can learn. The thing you can’t teach anybody is to have an arm like his.”
Everybody knows:
The chance Dave Gettleman has to draft a quarterback in a quarterback draft like the one that produced Eli comes along once a generation in the NFL.
If that.
A few years ago in the league it was Jameis Winston first and then Marcus Mariota second. To say the jury is still out on Winston is being generous. Mariota got a playoff comeback win Saturday for the Titans.
The year before last, the Rams went with Jared Goff first and the Eagles took Carson Wentz second. Goff got a playoff game this weekend. The Eagles have one of their own next weekend, just without Wentz, who got hurt on his way to perhaps being the MVP of his league.
Can Rosen and Darnold be as good as Goff and Wentz have been? Never any way of knowing. Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf were the top two picks a long time ago and Manning ended up going on to a Hall of Fame career and Leaf ended up in jail.
This time it is Rosen and Darnold who are supposed to go one and two.
Or Darnold and Rosen.
And off what I saw in college football this season, the good and bad from both of them, Giants fans ought to root for the Browns to take Rosen so their team can take Sam Darnold.
