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Horn: Tom Landry and Bill Parcells didn't have much in common, except titles
11:32 PM CST on Friday, November 19, 2010
Barry Horn
NFL Films has spent months working on parallel projects focusing on a couple of legendary coaches with little in common when it came to ways of doing things and temperament. But they both won Super Bowls, and both coached the Cowboys – Tom Landry and Bill Parcells.
The 60-minute "NFL's Man in the Hat" debuts at 12:30 p.m. today on CBS. "Bill Parcells: Reflections on a Life in Football" debuted last night on NFL Network but will reair today at 7:30 a.m. (missed it didn't you?) and 1:30 p.m.
Earlier this week, Hot Air chatted about the two coaches with NFL Films president Steve Sabol, who has been with what is known around the NFL simply as "Films" for four decades. Sabol is pretty good at putting together documentaries. He's won 34 personal Emmys while Films has pocketed 66 others.
What similarities did you uncover in examining the Landry and Parcells coaching styles?
We had three people working on Landry and two on Parcells. I'd run back and forth between the editing rooms, and I'd ask the same question. The answer I always came up with is "absolutely none."
But didn't they both produce winners?
I like to say Landry was a systems coach who worked with X's and O's. He kept everything inside, while Parcells worked with people. Parcells let it all hang out. Landry was always the same in dealing with players. Parcells could joke with a player one minute and in the next minute challenge the same player's manhood. But both gave great attention to detail and were great salesmen for what they believed.
How did they feel about exposing themselves and their teams to Films?
We miked Landry twice in training camp and once when we were doing a piece on Don Meredith. We got that in a quarterbacks meeting. He would never let us mike him in a game. We miked Parcells 18 times. That was in games, practices and meetings. Landry never understood us. All he knew of us was that we invented the term "America's Team," and he hated it. He thought all that did was motivate teams to play harder against the Cowboys. Parcells had no problem letting us in, but he would make us sweat to get through the door. Every time we asked, he delayed calling us back, and then he had to establish what he called "the rules of engagement." Then when we got there, he'd pick on us, accuse of getting in the way and ride the cameramen from start to finish. But we always got more stuff from him in one practice than we could get in three days with any other coach.
Is the Parcells piece 90 minutes long because of the long silences before he answered some questions you posed during the final interview?
We wanted to leave those in, because it almost allows people to see his brain turning while he decides how to answer. He chooses words carefully. It's as if he knew this might be his last interview with us.
11:32 PM CST on Friday, November 19, 2010
Barry Horn
NFL Films has spent months working on parallel projects focusing on a couple of legendary coaches with little in common when it came to ways of doing things and temperament. But they both won Super Bowls, and both coached the Cowboys – Tom Landry and Bill Parcells.
The 60-minute "NFL's Man in the Hat" debuts at 12:30 p.m. today on CBS. "Bill Parcells: Reflections on a Life in Football" debuted last night on NFL Network but will reair today at 7:30 a.m. (missed it didn't you?) and 1:30 p.m.
Earlier this week, Hot Air chatted about the two coaches with NFL Films president Steve Sabol, who has been with what is known around the NFL simply as "Films" for four decades. Sabol is pretty good at putting together documentaries. He's won 34 personal Emmys while Films has pocketed 66 others.
What similarities did you uncover in examining the Landry and Parcells coaching styles?
We had three people working on Landry and two on Parcells. I'd run back and forth between the editing rooms, and I'd ask the same question. The answer I always came up with is "absolutely none."
But didn't they both produce winners?
I like to say Landry was a systems coach who worked with X's and O's. He kept everything inside, while Parcells worked with people. Parcells let it all hang out. Landry was always the same in dealing with players. Parcells could joke with a player one minute and in the next minute challenge the same player's manhood. But both gave great attention to detail and were great salesmen for what they believed.
How did they feel about exposing themselves and their teams to Films?
We miked Landry twice in training camp and once when we were doing a piece on Don Meredith. We got that in a quarterbacks meeting. He would never let us mike him in a game. We miked Parcells 18 times. That was in games, practices and meetings. Landry never understood us. All he knew of us was that we invented the term "America's Team," and he hated it. He thought all that did was motivate teams to play harder against the Cowboys. Parcells had no problem letting us in, but he would make us sweat to get through the door. Every time we asked, he delayed calling us back, and then he had to establish what he called "the rules of engagement." Then when we got there, he'd pick on us, accuse of getting in the way and ride the cameramen from start to finish. But we always got more stuff from him in one practice than we could get in three days with any other coach.
Is the Parcells piece 90 minutes long because of the long silences before he answered some questions you posed during the final interview?
We wanted to leave those in, because it almost allows people to see his brain turning while he decides how to answer. He chooses words carefully. It's as if he knew this might be his last interview with us.