And Don’t Lose the Game

NEW ORLEANS —  New England Patriot Coach Bill Parcells is supposed to be the strict disciplinarian, but his Green Bay Packer counterpart, Mike Holmgren, is the one who has drawn up a list of rules for his players during their week of Super Bowl preparation in New Orleans.

Holmgren’s orders include:

Don’t go to Bourbon Street.

Don’t go gambling on the riverboats.

Don’t play golf.

Don’t wear tank tops.

Be neat. Shave if you have to.

Be in by 1 a.m.

There is no word on Jim McMahon’s reaction.

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On the first day of training camp, Holmgren showed his players the Super Bowl ring he won as offensive coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers in 1989, the season that ended with a 55-10 San Francisco victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV.

“Let’s get another one,” Holmgren told his Packers last summer as he displayed his ring.

The players never saw that ring again until Sunday when Holmgren wore it on the team’s charter flight to New Orleans.

Defensive end Sean Jones figures he and his teammates haven’t seen the last of that ring.

“He’ll flash it at dinner [Sunday],” Jones said, “and make sure the lights catch it just right.”

Whatever works.

Parcells said he thought about wearing one of the Super Bowl rings he earned as a two-time winner in his capacity as head coach of the New York Giants, but decided not to do so.

Why?

Parcells refused to say.

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The Boston Globe reported in today’s editions that Parcells will leave the Patriots following the Super Bowl, a long-rumored possibility. Citing unidentified sources, the newspaper said Parcells would not return because of an ongoing conflict with owner Robert Kraft.

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Think they are taking this year’s Packer team seriously in Wisconsin?

A Milwaukee television station took a poll of viewers on the subject of who was a greater coach, Holmgren, or Vince Lombardi.

Holmgren won.

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Both teams arrived in New Orleans on Sunday in time for evening news conferences, officially kicking off the hype of Super Bowl week.

More than 20,000 fans crowded Boston’s City Hall Plaza, braving temperatures in the teens, to cheer the Patriots before they boarded their airplane to New Orleans.

Many fans waved blue pom-poms and chanted “Squeeze the Cheese” while the players were introduced.

Kraft told the crowd New England would win.

“I think that number 13 is going to prove very unlucky for the NFC,” he said to cheers.

A couple of Patriot players were a few minutes late to a meeting before the trip and Parcells didn’t mince words.

“He made his point rather forcefully,” linebacker Ted Johnson said. “I saw guys sitting up in their chairs.”