Interim Miami Dolphins head coach Dan Campbell did not conduct a press conference Thursday to clarify remarks he had made the previous week, in which he claimed that during his days as a player for the Dallas Cowboys his appendix had “exploded” on a plane ride and that he had told no one.

“I understand that a few people in the media and elsewhere, rather than interpreting my words as a lesson in the virtue of toughness, have instead questioned the judgment I displayed, both within the story and in my decision to tell it,” Campbell did not say. “Others, I am sure, have doubts about the very veracity of my tale. Both scenarios are troubling, and I think it’s important for me to set the record straight, which is why I’ve asked you here today. So, let me be clear about what happened: I was poisoned.

“Before you go jumping to conclusions,” Campbell did not continue over the sound of a press corps evenly divided between shock and incredulity, “let me stipulate that I am not revealing some dark secret. There’s no mystery here. Are we all sitting in an Edwardian drawing room, primly drinking tea and listening to a diminutive Belgian narcissist catalogue our mistakes in minute detail, self-indulgently dolling out facts and lauding his own reasoning to his captive audience until it’s only the last thread of civilized values that prevents us from piling on him en masse and rending him limb from limb? No?  And why is that? Because this is not a fucking Agatha Christie novel, that’s why. So calm down.

“Bill Parcells poisoned me,” Campbell did not say. “Told me as much when I got out of the hospital. He sidled up to me at practice, poked me on my scar, and said, ‘you’ll thank me later.’ Then he winked and wandered off. I never did figure out why. This wasn’t the first time, either. Back in ’87 he apparently suplexed Mark Bavaro out of nowhere, pinned him, and was about to go to town with a sharpened spoon when Bavaro told him he didn’t have his appendix anymore. Parcells got up off him, told him, ‘good work’, and disappeared. I guess I was lucky to get poisoned.

“Wasn’t just the tight ends, either,” Campbell did not continue to the now agog press corps. “He had this notion that receivers got slow if there was too much blood in them. We’d find Terry Glenn lying shanked on the shower floor in a pool of his own blood at least once or twice a season, even after he retired. It was…well, it was disturbing, frankly. And Parcells made the linebackers drink pickle juice until they puked. Said it made them mean and ulcerous. He was at least half right, I’ll give him that.

“So, that’s the whole truth. Parcells poisoned me with something and my appendix exploded and I didn’t tell anyone because that’s how it was in the NFL ten years ago. We were tough and we didn’t complain even when we were hours away from death by sepsis. ESPECIALLY THEN. Near-death from sepsis is basically the fourth-and-short of life, it’s when you gotta dig deep. Football is all about tough yards, and let me tell you there are no yards tougher than the last few when you’re crawling toward the ER door with the clock ticking on a monster case of peritonitis.

“Of course I’m not mad at Parcells,” Campbell did not go on, in answer to a question from one of the few reporters not actively dry-heaving. “Made me the tough, appendix-less man I am today. I learned a lot from that guy, and those lessons are going to turn this bunch of weak-kneed slapdicks around.

“Oh, yes,” Campbell did not declare to the truly horrified press corps. “We’re putting the Parcells method to work here in Miami. You guys made a huge deal when I had the team do Oklahomas on my first day of practice, as if it were the first time a pro coach had every made the players maul each other. Let me tell you: that was nothing. It’s what you don’t see that’ll make the difference. I’ll tell you a secret: half this team is already within an ace of an overdose of digitalis. It’ll do ’em good, or at least thin the herd a little. On which subject, if any of you has a heart condition, I’d avoid the gatorade.

“Among others things,” he did not add, darkly.

“Let’s wrap this up, I’ve got to go see a man about some snakes,” Campbell did not say as reports threw down styrofoam cups and started running for the exits. “These Miami Dolphins will be the toughest team in NFL history. They’ll be faster. They’ll be stronger. They’ll be impervious to most of the known poisons in the world. They’ll have JUST the right amount of blood – no less, and certainly no more. They won’t shriek in terror at the sight of a few little old scorpions in the locker room.

“As for visitings teams, ” Campbell did not conclude, “well, thems as dies will be the lucky ones. I will now take no questions.”