Parcells Moves On as Life Without Testaverde Begins

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — This is the time for Amos Alonzo Stagg Lombardi Parcells to impose his will and wisdom and lift the Jets out of the terrible shock of their opening game. That’s what a great coach would do.

And don’t believe what the newspapers are saying. They’re saying--well, you know what they’re saying.

“Why do I feel I’m in a damn funeral?” the great coach blurted Wednesday after hearing all the questions mourning the loss of Vinny Testaverde. “It’s not a funeral.”

It was a soft-toned media session Wednesday as the Jets went back to work. It was not the time to bristle. So he was going to try to run this week’s practice as close to routine as he could. He recited the roster moves and the list of the fallen and said just move the pylons and move on. “I see the Buffalo Bills,” Parcell said. “That’s all I see now.”

Maybe he is shaken as they are, however the emotions are tempered by age and experience. He certainly wasn’t going to betray that to the media or through them to the players. No woe-is-me allowed here. ‘It’s not just football; that’s life,’ Parcells said.

Sure, he’d been through this before. He cited losing five Pro Bowl Giants on route to the ’86 Super Bowl, but he didn’t lose the quarterback. When he did lose Phil Simms on route to the ’91 Super Bowl, they were already 10-1 and Jeff Hostetler already had time in the system to prepare himself to step in.

“Bill Parcells doesn’t have to prove himself,” Wayne Chrebet, the doughty receiver, said, propping up his point of view on something more emotional than the crutches holding up his broken foot. Of course, Parcells has proved his coaching mastery over the last 15 years. The point is, this is the time to demonstrate it.

In Testaverde they had the happy-ending quarterback yanked away when they were feeling he’d lead them to greatness. Now the ball is in the hands of Rick Mirer, who didn’t make it at other places. They don’t know him and he doesn’t know them. And the wise coach really makes it sound that he’d really like to have Ray Lucas’ fire at the position, if only he wasn’t so inexperienced. Remember how Parcells, when he was the resident genius of the Giants, loved Simms’ fire.

“Both Rick and Ray, I’m trying to find out exactly what they can do well,” Parcells said.

And how do they handle the timing with the receivers? Testaverde threw the ball over the top and delivered it before receivers had made their moves. Mirer, they don’t know.

So the week’s preparation was begun with the advisory, as Keyshawn Johnson put it, “don’t listen to the bull, plain and simple.” With 15 games to play, he was saying, how could anybody write the season was over? That wasn’t the point at all. Parcells is enough horseplayer to recognize the reason why the odds on the favorite suddenly went way up. He just didn’t want his younger players absorbing what they read -- or older players, for that matter.

Parcells stayed up all night after the loss to New England. Usually he gets some sleep. This was a last-moment defeat, but they were all counting on the now reliable Testaverde. No single position in sports except perhaps goalie is as critical as quarterback. So Mirer came to work on Tuesday, the day off, to watch films and listen to Parcells and to take home the game plan a day early.

“You just move on,” Parcells said. “Things very seldom go without a bump in the road. You can equate that to a lot of circumstance, not just football.” That’s philosophy. The job is to evaluate Mirer’s talent and readiness, and to have Lucas prepared because he’s always one play away from being the quarterback.

What does Mirer do well and what poorly? He studied football at Notre Dame, so he’s been exposed to crowds and hype. Testaverde, Randall Cunningham and Doug Flutie all emerged from the ashes last season, which is encouraging, but none of them had to deal with Mirer’s frantic haste.

Parcells and Simms snarled back and forth. Parcells took a different tack in resurrecting Testaverde. “Right now I’d be inclined to encourage Rick,” Parcells said. Mirer said he could take abuse, but who knows?

If it’s not going well, the coach will simplify things. He said he did that often with Simms. Early in his time with Drew Bledsoe in New England, Parcells felt he had overloaded the quarterback and told him after the game it would never happen again.

Mirer is trying to find his way through the thicket. He was, remember, once the second pick in the whole draft. “I think I can do things better than the way they turned out in the past,” Mirer said.

So it’s back to football as usual. “That’s where we are right now,” he said. Mirer was concerned about his home in Jupiter, Fla., but the hurricane has bypassed it. If it rains Thursday and Friday, he said, “we’ll just go in the bubble. If the bubble is still here.”