Dallas Cowboys: Ranking the Coaches of ‘America’s Team’
3. Bill Parcells
2003-06
Wins: 34, Losses: 30 (64 games)
Parcells had his greatest moments with the New York Giants as a head coach in the NFL, but what he did for the Cowboys became of great importance to the franchise.
Iin his final NFL stop at the job, the Hall of Fame head coach brought the Cowboys out of the gutter and back into the playoffs in his very first season in Big D. The Cowboys were coming off a 5-11 season, but with Parcells the team went 10-6, second in the NFC East, and played in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.
The team lost the game to the Carolina Panthers, 29-10, but that season should go down in the history books as being the season the Cowboys started to become relevant in the NFL again.
The next season wasn’t as great with the Cowboys finishing 6-10, but it was a mess with no constancy at quarterback or pretty much anywhere else on the offense. Though the Cowboys didn’t get into the playoffs in 2005, they did have a winning record at 9-7. In the final year with Parcells as the head coach, the team in ’06 had another 9-7 record, reaching the playoff but losing in the Wild Card round to the Seattle Seahawks, 21-20 in a game they should have won, but lost on the infamous dropped field goal hold by Tony Romo.
Maybe grooming Romo from an undrafted free agent from Eastern Illinois to the Top 10 NFL quarterback he’s become today is one of the better legacies Parcells has left with this franchise.
There were no playoff wins or Super Bowl championships with Parcells, but he left the organization in a much better spot than when he arrived, and looking at the folks behind him on this list, that can’t be said.
Next: No. 2: JJ brought team from worst-to-first