Two Bills short

Two of the best head coaches in the history of the National Football League have called it quits this offseason, and that's never a good thing.

Bill Cowher resigned after 15 seasons as the Pittsburgh Steelers' coach, just one year after winning Super Bowl XL, and Bill Parcells retired (again), this time after serving four years as the ring leader of the Dallas Cowboys.

While the situations and circumstances may be different, one thing can be said about both coaches – they had enough and felt it was time to go home.

Let's start with Cowher. And we'll do so by saying that he has not coached his last game, not by a long shot. While Steelers owner Dan Rooney is by all accounts a great owner and classy guy, I have no doubt in my mind that if Rooney offered a contract extension to Cowher of fair-market value, he'd still be patrolling the sidelines of Heinz Field.

Cowher's team won the Lombardi Trophy a year ago, and yet, Mike Holmgren of the Seattle Seahawks was the one who parlayed a Super Bowl appearance into a fat contract extension. Something in the neighborhood of seven to eight million a year should have been enough to bring Cowher back to a situation he clearly loved. Instead, he walked away and took with him a better winning percentage than his predecessor Chuck Noll, who won four Super Bowls with the Steelers.

Cowher will enjoy "retirement" in North Carolina for a year or two and then take another team's money to come back to a game he never should have left in the first place. I don't feel bad for Cowher because all of these coaches make a ton of money, but when NFL busts like Steve Spurrier make five million a year, having a proven winner like Coach Chin is worth the extra investment.

And now to Parcells. By all accounts, he took his ball and went home because of two people – Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and wide receiver Terrell Owens. There's only so much a 65-year-old man can take before he say "screw this" and heads on the first plane out of "Big D."

Let me remind everyone that Parcells is on the record as saying if he's "gonna be the cook," then he should be the one to "pick out the groceries." That means if you want him to be the head coach, then in his opinion the least you can do is let him pick his players and field the team that best fits what he wants to accomplish. Everyone gets that, except Jones.

He's the one who brings in T.O. when the world knows he's a drama queen and a cancer. He's the one who lurks on the sideline almost as often as Parcells himself. He's the one who tells Parcells that if he does come back for the 2007 season he's planning on hiring a new offensive coordinator, whether he likes it or not. Parcells is a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer, so shouldn't you let him do the job you hired him to do?

Sure, Jason Garrett, who held a clipboard while Troy Aikman quarterbacked some of the most dominant teams in Cowboys' history, might some day be a solid NFL coach. But right now he's just a quarterbacks coach for the Miami Dolphins, and last I checked, they have bigger names than production out of QBs Daunte Culpepper and Joey Harrington in Miami. So what's the rush to force him into your organization, even if it means alienating your current coach in the process?

Everyone knows that The Tuna is the only coach is NFL history to take four different teams to the playoffs, but for my money the biggest stat to prove that the man, point blank, can coach is this: Parcells has a 50-1 record when entering the fourth quarter with a lead of 11 points or more in his head coaching career. His one loss came from the Washington Redskins, when they came back from a 13-0 deficit to beat the Cowboys 14-13.

That tells me that at the end of the day his teams are always mentally tough and prepared on gameday. If a Parcells team had a chance to go for the kill, he'd gladly be the one to put his boot on the opposition's throat. In contrast, when you see the New York Giants blow a game against the Tennessee Titans earlier this season that they were winning 21-0 with 11 minutes left in the game, well ... let's just say that Tom Coughlin is no Parcells.

In a league where there are only a limited number of dependable coaches and quarterbacks it's vital to hold onto a good one if you get him. No one thinks you can instantly replace Tom Brady with some up-and-comer like Brady Quinn (or some other flavor of the month) and maintain status quo as the league's best team this decade. So why would an owner think it could be done with a coach? Not every good coordinator becomes a good head coach. For every Sean Payton there's a dozen Norv Turners.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jones goes one step further and hires Garrett to be the head coach. After all, that's the new trend in the league this year – getting them while they're young. It's probably the best-case scenario for the Dallas owner, when you stop to think of it. Garrett will just be happy to be there, so he won't mind when Jones plays general manager and dictates which players come and go and everything involving Owens' shenanigans.

All I know is that fans of the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles have reason to celebrate now that The Tuna has left the building. I'd mention Giants fans, but last I checked, Coughlin's still calling the shots in New York.

Brian Murphy is the 2005 Defense Department's sportswriter of the year. And he still doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Contact him at murf@the5holes.com.