Mike Celizic

Even Bill Parcells doesn’t know what he’s doing next year, so for me to pretend that I know he’ll be back on the Cowboys’ sideline would be foolish — even for a columnist. So let me put it this way: I’d be more surprised if he quits than if he comes back.

If it hadn’t been for the way Dallas lost, the Tuna’s future would have been the only topic of conversation in Big D from the moment the game ended. But when you lose like the Cowboys did, it takes a couple of days to totally absorb and process the pain.

There’s no sense going over the gory details. If you’re reading this, you know all about it. Suffice it to say that it’s the kind of play that stays with a franchise. Dallas will get over Romo’s hold at about the same time Boston fans get over Bill Buckner, Cleveland fans get over “The Drive,” A’s fans get over Kirk Gibson, and your wife gets over your forgetting your anniversary. I happen to know when that will be: on the day the sun burns out and life ceases to exist.

Plays like that can crush a team, bit they can also make them stronger; the A’s who lost to Gibson’s Dodgers came back the next year and won the World Series.

The point is that winners don’t quit because of such plays, and Parcells is not a loser. For people like him, it’s the kind of play that makes every molecule in his body burn with the determination to come back and get it right, to turn as agonizing an ending as any team has ever suffered into an unsurpassed triumph.

He knows his team had that game won, and if they could try that kick over 100 times, it will split the uprights every time.

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Parcells has moved a lot during his career, from the Giants to the Patriots to the Jets to Dallas. Every time he’s left a team, it’s been on less than the best of terms and before his contract was up. When he signed for four years with Dallas in 2003, I didn’t think there was any way he’d last out the contract.

But he stayed because he poured himself into building a team that he thinks can win him one more Super Bowl. He has always said he doesn’t coach for his own glory, but to help his players realize their potential, and he’s been saying it for so many years, I believe him. But somewhere inside, Parcells also wants to win for himself.