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IRVING, Texas - Bill Parcells thinks he's a perfect match for the Dallas Cowboys (news).
"It's a storied franchise, and I think it's a franchise that had a tradition of winning," Parcells said Thursday on his weekly show for Sporting News Radio. "More than all of that, I'm convinced that the owner of the team wants to win and is willing to do what's necessary to at least attempt to do that. That's very important."
Parcells said he signed a four-year deal with the Cowboys to return to coaching.
The Cowboys announced they would hold a news conference Thursday, but they didn't say why. Parcells' agent, Jimmy Sexton, didn't return phone calls to The Associated Press.
Parcells hasn't coached since leaving the New York Jets (news) after the 1999 season. He has been a studio analyst for ESPN.
"Quite frankly, I didn't anticipate that I'd be back in coaching," the 61-year-old Parcells said Thursday.
Even before firing coach Dave Campo on Monday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones already had two long conversations with Parcells.
Citing an unidentified source, ESPN said Parcells' deal was for $17.1 million. The Dallas Morning News, quoting Sexton, reported the same figure.
The Cowboys have had three straight 5-11 seasons and are seven years removed from the last of their five Super Bowl championships. Parcells won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants and took the New England Patriots to the NFL title game before three seasons with the New York Jets.
Parcells' career regular-season record is 138-100-1, and he's 11-6 in the postseason. Only four coaches have more playoff victories.
Parcells coached the last of his 15 NFL seasons with the Jets in 1999. When he left that job on Jan. 3, 2000, he said he'd never coach again and even wrote a book, "The Final Season: My Last Year as Head Coach in the NFL."
Since then, he jilted Tampa Bay for the second time. Parcells was so close to joining the Buccaneers last year that he signed a contract. Tampa Bay, which wants compensation from any team that hires the coach, was scheduled to present its case to the commissioner's office Thursday.
Two sources within the league told the AP that the Bucs would not receive any compensation because the deal Parcells signed was not forwarded to the league office and therefore never approved by commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
Parcells first backed out on the Bucs in 1992. Five years before that, after his first Super Bowl, Parcells had a deal in place with Atlanta before then-commissioner Pete Rozelle upheld protests by the Giants.
Jones wants Parcells so much that he's apparently willing to allow the new coach more authority than anyone since Jimmy Johnson, the first coach he hired after buying the Cowboys in 1989.
If he can get along with Jerry and get some talent that is.
Staubach. 
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