Todd Bowles Gets Weekly Texts From Bill Parcells

At his Wednesday press conference, Todd Bowles revealed he gets weekly texts from Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells.

On whether he buys into Bill Parcells’ theory that you have to coach your team harder for this kind of game and if that impacted his decision to have a padded practice…

I got that text right after the game (laughing). I understand what he’s saying. To a point you buy it, but to a point you have to be consistent with your team and do the same things that you’ve been doing. We don’t look at any game as a trap game, we look at it as the next game so we just have to take care of us.

On if he listens to what Parcells says in his texts…

I always listen to what he says. For me personally, I always listen to what he says.

On what Parcells’ text said…

He said everybody’s talking playoffs, just coach your team and worry about the next game.

On how often Parcells’ reaches out to him…

I get a text after every game.

On if any of Parcells’ texts stand out to him…

After losses, he has words of wisdom and after wins, he wants to press and keep going. The biggest thing he said in the middle of the season when we lost four-out-of-five was ‘Nobody remembers midseason losses, it’s how you finish.’ That one stuck out.

Parcells is something of a mentor for Bowles. Bowles coached the secondary for the Cowboys under Parcells in 2005 and 2006. Bowles left Dallas after the 2007 season to go to Miami, where Parcells had just taken over as Executive Vice President of Football Operations.

Bowles indicated he also keeps in touch with Bruce Arians. He coached under Arians with the Cardinals before being hired by the Jets and played for Arians in college at Temple.

Coach (Bruce) Arians reaches out as well and he does a good job talking to me. They keep me grounded.

I can think of worse people to receive advice from during the week than those two.