Edition: U.S. / Global

Sports of The Times; Parcells's Assistants Roll the Dice

Published: January 18, 2002

ATTENTION, attention, loyalists of Bill Parcells. Be careful what you wish for, and proceed to Tampa at your own risk.

That means you, Mike Tannenbaum, Bill Muir, Maurice Carthon, Todd Haley and the rest of the Parcellulites, as Steve Serby of The New York Post dubbed disciples of the chunky tyrant when he was baring and cutting his coaching legend's teeth with the Giants.

If any of you values stable working conditions and a clean, ethical reputation within the National Football League, you may want to ask yourself the question my father used to pose when I was about to leap feet first into the professional unknown: What do you need it for?

To him, a federal job with lifetime medical benefits was about as good as it gets. This doesn't exist in the hero-today, gone-tomorrow N.F.L., but there sure are different levels of security and risk. Based on what we've heard of Parcells and are hearing again, joining him in Tampa Bay with the Buccaneers must be considered a proposition as breakable as the mirror Parcells gazed into when he fancied himself finished with coaching two years ago with the Jets.

While the Guy in the Glass told him what he wished to hear, Parcells didn't bother listening to Bill Belichick, who he presumed couldn't wait to succeed him. The result was an embarrassing administrative collision of egos and agendas. Parcells's Jets regime initially read like prize-winning prose. The ending was just bad poetry.

''There'll be no rumors about Bill Parcells,'' he said upon handing the ball to Belichick, who promptly spiked it in his own backfield. ''I've coached my last game.'' Now we know the next line: If you believed that, you must be insane.

Parcells is entitled to change his mind. He's 60, not 80. There are only so many thoroughbred races to handicap, and the winnings can't compare to the money Malcolm Glazer, the Buccaneers' owner, is tempting him with.

Michael Jordan came back for the ''love of the game,'' and now we know that the enhanced commercial cash flow will soften an eventual divorce settlement with his estranged wife. His Wizards are a feel-good story this basketball season, but they may yet regret the respectability Jordan has brought them when they start picking from leftovers in the next college draft.

In a similar vein, we have for more than a year been reading about the salary-cap fix Parcells left the Jets in. More than a reflection of the cap guru Tannenbaum, whose interview with the Buccaneers on Wednesday presages Parcells's grand unveiling next week, it is a commentary on the scorched-earth approach Parcells brings.

He is by now more drug than cure, promising the potent high of a postseason run while presenting the risk of a very bad and brief trip. Under Parcells, the Jets experienced both, falling one game short of the Super Bowl in the 1998 season before the mirror spoke up. If it should happen to summon Parcells for another premature existential chat, these people eagerly turning over their careers to him will be up the river, without their Tuna.

The Jets' family and their fans should not feel betrayed, or even badly, about Parcells's re-emergence. They got from him all he was capable of giving in one particular place. The Jets have a good organization in place, a playoff nucleus to build on.

If the N.F.L. unearths evidence that Parcells is circumventing its tampering rules, hitting on his guys after agreeing verbally to a deal, the whole thing may yet blow apart. The league at this point just sounds annoyed that it has another Parcells migraine to deal with during showcase season.

Nor should this become a Tony Dungy crusade, a race issue, unless he somehow can't get another job. Dungy's Bucs made the playoffs four times in six years. He is no Pete Carroll, but getting rehired is even more an indication of equity than getting hired.

Given his defensive acumen, Dungy will do fine elsewhere, especially if he finally hooks up with a quarterback like Peyton Manning in Indianapolis. As for Parcells, it's never smart to bet against the man who was named a finalist yesterday for Hall of Fame election, but it'll be an interesting show if the Bucs go 8-8 and Keyshawn Johnson begins to publicly pine for Dungy.

Win, lose or draw, everyone will be waiting for the inevitable Parcells rumor, including his buddies so eager to follow him, whatever it takes, to his next fortress, where they will again be shielded from the public and press like Al Qaeda prisoners. They're all big boys and football people. It's their calls, and careers.

Photo: Bill Parcells (Associated Press)