Goodell to NFL coaches: All access

Neil Best
SPORTS WATCH

Goodell to NFL coaches: All access
It's all but official now: Bill Parcells will not come out of retirement - ever.

Not if he reads a pointedly written memo in which the NFL updated media guidelines, tightening injury report rules, mandating regular access to assistants, liberalizing offseason access and much more.


Yikes! Call it Revenge of the Nerds MMVII.

The rules will most affect members of the paranoid Parcells/Bill Belichick coaching tree, two of whom happen to guide our local squads.

Tom Coughlin and Eric Mangini no longer will be permitted to bind and gag assistants when reporters are around. (Each had allowed severely limited access to assistants in the past; Coughlin was planning to open things up a bit in 2007 even before the directive.)

Fans and reporters can thank new commissioner Roger Goodell, a former Jets public relations intern who gets the concept that the news media is a conduit to paying customers, and that assistants can offer insights head coaches won't or can't.

The refined policy came out of meetings with the writers' association and was presented at the owners' meetings. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the commissioner "wanted more consistency and everybody operating at the same high level."

Any complaints from head coaches? "No," Aiello said.

Even Belichick? "No."

One rule seems aimed squarely at the Jets. It says a "credible" depth chart must be provided starting no later than the week of the preseason opener: "Listing players at each position on the depth chart in alphabetical order is prohibited."