DallasCowboys.com: Ball Now In Hasselbeck's Hands

[bubba9497]

Ball Now In Hasselbeck's Hands

Clay Fowler

DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer

http://www.dallascowboys.com/news.cfm?id=6C57B68A-F580-FB4B-87B5D73C54C91673

IRVING, Texas - Tim Hasselbeck is familiar with the rigorous demands Bill Parcells puts on his players. He practically experienced them first hand, nine years ago.

The Redskins second-year quarterback witnessed the ways of the Cowboys coach as a ball boy with the New England Patriots in 1993, and probably has a good idea of what the Dallas Cowboys have gone through this past week, limping into Sunday's NFC East matchup against the Washington Redskins on a two-game losing streak.

Parcells, in his first year as coach of the Patriots, was running a two-minute drill in practice. The team wasn't quite executing to his standards when the coach called everyone in to have some words. Hasselbeck, standing by, observed a Parcells rant as he chastised his squad for a lackluster effort.

Then, much to his surprise, the coach called the ball boys into the middle of the huddle, too. A petrified Hasselbeck, just a junior in high school, took a tongue lashing from Parcells with the rest of the ball boys for their less than desired efforts in front of the entire team.

"He'll yell at the ball boys just as much as he'll yell at the players," Hasselbeck said. "It's kind of a funny story when I look back at it now, but just being able to be around him and see how he dealt with his players, I learned some things at a young age."

Just how much he has learned will be on display at FexEx Field when Hasselbeck, the once impressionable teenager, will no longer be trying to please Parcells, but beat him come Sunday as the starting quarterback of the Washington Redskins. Hasselbeck will be starting his third consecutive game in place of starter Patrick Ramsey, who required season-ending surgery to repair a badly bruised foot bone.

This will be an interesting confrontation for Parcells, since he has known the Hasselbeck family for 24 years. Tim's father, Don Hasselbeck, played tight end for the Patriots when Parcells was the linebackers coach in 1980 and also spent a year with the Giants (1985) when Parcells was the head coach.

Parcells is close with Tim's mother Betsy Hasselbeck and knows brother Matt, the starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. "Timmy," as Parcells affectionately refers to the Redskins signal caller, was worthy of being a ball boy because he could throw. The coach always liked to have a couple of extra arms around practice so his quarterbacks didn't wear themselves out.

But all 32 NFL teams didn't think enough of Hasselbeck's ability to throw in 2003. After spending training camp with the Philadelphia Eagles for the second year in a row, Hasselbeck was cut loose, left jobless his second season out of Boston College.

With the season seven weeks deep, Hasselbeck said he was thinking about giving up football, figuring out what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Until he got a call from Washington.

"One of our scouts, Mike Kelly, was at Philadelphia last year and recommended we give him a look during the off week," Redskins coach Steve Spurrier said. "He came in for a try-out, threw the ball very well. All of our coaches liked him. Very coachable, smart young man, so we decided right there to make him our No. 2 quarterback. We released Rob Johnson, signed Tim Hasselbeck and lo' and behold now he's our guy."

The transition was seamless, according to Spurrier. Hasselbeck has held his own, completing 55.3 percent of his passes in two starts for 555 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.

Washington hasn't changed their offense since Hasselbeck took over for Ramsey, on injured reserve following surgery on a bone bruise in his foot. Looking back, Ramsey probably wished his season would have been over before he met the Cowboys Nov. 2. The Dallas defense harassed him all game, Ramsey spending much of the afternoon in Texas Stadium on his back.

Since then, the Redskins have made much improvement up front, according to the Cowboys. Safety Darren Woodson says the Skins are a different team now from when they first met in that 21-14 Cowboys victory, and attributes the improved play to the increased ability to protect the quarterback.

"They're shortening the quarterback drops," Parcells said. "The ball is going out more quickly and they're trying to put more emphasis on the running game. They want to be balanced if they can as opposed to earlier in the year when they probably were set on being a one-third two thirds run-pass type of scenario."

Washington ran the ball 48 times last week and threw only 19 times in a 20-7 win over the Giants, verifying Parcells' thoughts of a shift in priority. The Cowboys defense can expect to have less opportunity to get to the quarterback this Sunday.

While the Cowboys have had less success pressuring the quarterback of late Hasselbeck is not convinced they won't come after him. He saw what happened to Ramsey a month ago, getting sacked four times, hit countless others and was even needed to spell the shaken first stringer at one point.

"The way I know them is the way they played against us," Hasselbeck said. "We haven't made them pay for (the blitz.) Until we do something like that, we have to expect that that's what they're going to do the whole game against us."

And if the Cowboys have some early success pressuring Hasselbeck, you can bet they'll be sending everybody they can at the Redskins young quarterback. Maybe, the ball boys, too.