I read in today’s USA TODAY that Bill Parcells is going to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and I think it’s a big mistake.  Here’s a column I wrote some time ago and I think it bears repeating again:

By way of background, one of the biggest complaints NFL players have about coaches is that they feel some really don’t care about players’ personal problems and issues and are only interested in exploiting them to win games. Which seems to have been the case when you look at Bill Parcells’ treatment of Lawrence Taylor when Taylor was a New York Giant and Parcells was head coach. As we now know, Parcells looked the other way and allowed Taylor to continue to use illegal drugs and cheat on his urine tests, and to constantly violate team curfew hours, all in the name of winning. Parcels did not do Taylor any favors since he (Taylor) later tearfully admitted on national television (60 Minutes) that he was an addict. When this happened, it didn’t sit well with some of his Dallas Cowboys’ players who Parcells was then coaching in his first year as their head coach. And I don’t believe it was a coincidence that the Cowboys lost two out of their next three games and were eliminated from the playoffs. Parcells should not be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but rather the Hall of Shame.