On Thursday afternoon, several hours before the start of the NFL draft, the phone lights up in Bill Belichick’s Foxboro office. It would be tough to argue that the incessant ringing bothers him. Since becoming the coach of the Patriots in 2000, Belichick has made a draft-day deal with all but eight teams in the league. The Jets are among the eight who have never called, and if they ever do, Belichick will likely think Sol Rosenberg and Frank Rizzo, two of the telephone prankster characters from the Jerky Boys, have something to do with it.
The current call is from Atlanta, and it’s not the usual trade inquiry. Thomas Dimitroff is on the line, and he wants to exchange ideas about many things, including the dramatic trade he has on the table with Cleveland.
In the past six weeks or so, Dimitroff’s most singular thought has been moving to the top of the draft and taking Alabama receiver Julio Jones. He’s visualized Jones as a Falcon so often that when he visualized on Wednesday night, he briefly panicked. He wondered if the organization had sent any Falcons gear to New York for Jones to wear when his name is announced at Radio City Music Hall. He was relieved to learn that all of those details are handled by the league. For the next three days and seven rounds, all he has to worry about is picking football players.
After some general draft conversation, Dimitroff and Belichick get into the specifics of the Falcons-Browns trade.
“Thomas, I’m just telling you as a friend,” Belichick says, “I wouldn’t do it.”
Belichick has a couple good reasons for his analysis and he’s willing to share. He often says that the primary job of a receiver is to simply get open and catch the ball, and he doesn’t like what he sees from Jones in either department. He thinks the receiver struggles to get open on intermediate routes, doesn’t play as fast as his superb timed speed suggests, and too often displays inconsistent hands. There’s also the issue of value. When Belichick began studying the 2011 draft, he saw great depth at the receiver position. Why go all-out for someone like Jones when you can likely have a Jonathan Baldwin, who, as far as Belichick can see, is just as good if not better than Jones? If Belichick wanted even more insight on Jones, he could always ask the receiver’s head coach, Nick Saban, the two-time national championship winner who was Belichick’s first defensive coordinator in Cleveland. But Belichick has seen enough on his own without going to Saban for an additional report.
Dimitroff is not shocked by the comments. Not only does he respect Belichick’s opinion, but some of his own opinions exist because of what Belichick has taught him over the years. When he first got to the Patriots in 2002, he took a more scientific approach to studying hands and separation after hearing Belichick describe what a good receiver should be able to do. But, in this case, what it comes down to is a basic, subjective disagreement.
From his film study and interviews, Dimitroff concluded that a lot of Jones’s drops came from his competitiveness and his belief that he could make a play each time he touched the ball. Sometimes he simply got ahead of himself. There’s also the chance that Lionel Vital’s pithy breakdown of Jones is so accurate that the Falcons will have to learn to live with some surprising incompletions. After all, Vital said that Jones is Terrell Owens, and for all his greatness, Owens has often been criticized for his drops.
As for the criticism that is surely coming his way in a few hours, Dimitroff also learned from Belichick how to approach it. He watched and listened when Belichick chose to go with Tom Brady over Drew Bledsoe in 2001; released Lawyer Milloy less than a week before the start of the 2003 season; “reached” for a future All-Pro guard named Logan Mankins in the first round in 2005; and even allowed one of the icons of the 2001 championship season, Adam Vinatieri, to make it to free agency and eventually become a Colt in 2006. Belichick’s standard line for all occasions is the same: “I did what I thought was best for the team.”
Dimitroff believes that he’s doing the same thing. Based on where the Falcons are at this stage of their development, accumulating picks is not what they need. What they need, their general manager thinks, is to cobble some picks together, move up from 27 to 6, and get an impact player. He’s thought about that for more than a month. He’s cross-checked it with the Falcons, starting with Arthur Blank and working his way down the organizational chart. He’s mentioned it to two friends, Belichick and Scott Pioli, and his record with them is 1–1. Pioli, who was told of the plan before Dimitroff’s conversation with Belichick, said he would do it; Belichick said no way.
Even if Pioli and Belichick told him different things, at least Dimitroff knows that those two understand what kind of step he’s taking and the ramifications of it. If he’s wrong, no one will write about the democratic nature of the process and how the entire Atlanta organization was on board with the move. If this goes bad, he’s the star of the movie, and depending on just how bad it is, it could cost him his job or at least his reputation as a sound GM. If he succeeds, even the ticket-takers and their cousins will claim a role in helping the deal go forward. It’s the way it is, and he’s content with it.
Dimitroff, Belichick, and Pioli will enter the draft with different team needs and different ideas on how to fill them. All three of them have been thinking about the best way to go forward for weeks. They all had winning seasons in 2010, but it didn’t feel that way. Since being turned away from the play-offs on consecutive January weekends, one coach and two GMs have spent long hours scouting and planning. They’ve been thinking of what they’re going to do in their respective draft rooms, how their decisions in rooms with neutral-colored walls can get them back to playing the last game of the season on a neutral field on Super Bowl Sunday. Soon, finally, it will be time for all of them to turn their thoughts to action.
As the first round begins, no one in New England, Kansas City, or Atlanta is surprised by the first five picks. At number six, the huge Atlanta draft room, twice the size of New England’s and Kansas City’s and filled with twice as many people, erupts into high-fives and smiles when the much-discussed deal is announced. There are two TVs in the room, one tuned to ESPN and the other to the NFL Network, and the volume happens to be up on the ESPN TV when analyst and former NFL coach Jon Gruden gives his thoughts on the trade. The very first thing he mentions is … the inconsistent hands of Julio Jones. ESPN has taken sports visual media to another level with its unlimited resources, so there is a well-produced montage for millions and millions to see that Jones, apparently, can’t catch. There are dismissive waves at the TV from the Falcons’ draft room and instead a focus on what has been accomplished. The bank of phones at the head table, where Dimitroff, Blank, and head coach Mike Smith sit, begins to ring.
It’s Kansas City.
“Hey, man,” Pioli says to Dimitroff. “I’m sitting here with Clark and we both say that took some big ones. Congrats.” Clark Hunt, the Chiefs’ chairman of the board, has a line for Blank that Pioli relays. “Hey, Thomas. Clark wants to know if you’ve told Arthur how much this move is going to cost him.”
They all laugh as the draft continues. It is now making up for the surprises it lacked in the top five. One of the top three players on the Chiefs’ board, Missouri defensive end Aldon Smith, goes seventh to the 49ers. Smith is instinctive and powerful, and in his first full year of college ball he produced an impressive eleven and a half sacks. The Chiefs didn’t expect him to go in the top ten, but with so many teams talking about getting to the quarterback in a quarterbacks’ league, the selection isn’t outrageous.
Quarterbacks and pass rushers, in fact, have now accounted for ten of the first fourteen selections in the draft. At number fifteen, with Miami on the clock, the Chiefs have a stake in the player who will go here, too. Pioli is willing to trade up six spots from number 21 so the Chiefs can draft Florida’s Mike Pouncey. They see him as a day one starter in the league, a center with smarts, toughness, and the type of talent that can transform an entire line. They spent a lot of time talking about the position in their draft meetings, and they were going to take at least one center, maybe even two, in this draft. But as much as they love Pouncey and as pressing as their need at center is, they can’t agree to what they believe to be a fair deal with the Dolphins and their general manager, Jeff Ireland. So the Dolphins take the in-state kid, and the Chiefs and Patriots excitedly look at the remaining players on the board. The run on quarterbacks, four in the top twelve, has led to the availability of some excellent players.
Belichick sees an opportunity to grab one of the two first-round tackles that he has been extremely high on during the draft process. Dallas took one of them, Southern Cal’s Tyron Smith, at number 9. “I think you’ll have a hard time pointing to three or four players in this draft who are better than he is,” Belichick says of Smith.
One of the hardest things to do, before or during a draft, is to predict where Belichick will go with his first pick. Most of the pre-draft speculation had the Patriots taking an edge rusher, either a big defensive end or a linebacker in the 260-to-265-pound range with the bulk to hold up against the run and the speed to get to the quarterback. If Belichick wants to go that route, he has two good options available. One is Adrian Clayborn, a defensive end who played at Iowa for Kirk Ferentz, a member of Belichick’s first coaching staff in Cleveland. The other is 280-pound defensive end Cameron Jordan of Cal. But that’s not the side of the ball Belichick is looking for.
He was able to draft tackle Sebastian Vollmer in 2009 and watch him excel and become an immediate starter. That may not be the case for Nate Solder of Colorado, since longtime left tackle Matt Light could be re-signed and resume his starting position on Tom Brady’s blind side, but it’s only a matter of time before Solder will become a star. Phil Emery said he had never seen a man of Solder’s size, six feet eight inches, show such athleticism and ability to recover after being pushed. What the Patriots were going to have to work on was that Solder could get pushed. What they, and Brady, were going to love is that he rarely, if ever, fell down.
There is always an expectation that the Patriots will trade out of first-round picks, but the expectation is unfounded when New England has multiple picks in round one. In those instances, the Patriots have never traded out of the “lead” pick. Their history is that they use the first pick and then trade the second one, usually for a future selection.
After the Patriots take Solder at 17 and introduce him by phone to the man who will be paying him, owner Robert Kraft, they wait to see how the rest of the board falls before they are scheduled to make their next pick, at 28. As Pioli alluded to during his dinner with Dimitroff in Mobile, the Patriots’ draft room is an exclusive and mostly quiet place. There are no jokesters or loud storytellers. Those who want food can take a walk downstairs to the first-floor cafeteria, but this is not the place to bring your plate of chicken wings with blue cheese dip on the side. If Belichick needs additional information from a scout, he’ll have someone call him in. Otherwise, most Patriots scouts are in the same position as most football fans in America: on the outside looking in, waiting to see what will happen next. In the meantime, Pioli and the Chiefs are feeling good about what they’re seeing. There are several players on the board whom they would happily welcome to Kansas City. When their phones ring at a center table, occupied by Pioli, Clark Hunt, Daniel Hunt, head coach Todd Haley, and assistant GM Joel Collier, they are ready to deal if something makes sense. Cleveland is offering the pick it got from the Falcons, number 27, along with its third-round choice, number 70, for 21.
The deal is too good to ignore. It’s an opportunity to grab a player with a chance to be an immediate contributor in exchange for moving back six slots, and they already see six players they like. The Chiefs agree to it and then go into the same waiting mode as the Patriots, whom they now sit directly in front of. They are in different states of mind, though. The Chiefs are waiting to make a choice. The Patriots have one eye on the board and one dozen on the phones. If he doesn’t get a deal he wants, Belichick knows he will take Virginia corner Ras-I Dowling at 28. He’d rather have someone call, though, because he’s confident he can get Dowling tomorrow, in round two. It’ll be a mostly quiet wait in the Patriots’ library atmosphere, but there will be some chatter as long as the player ESPN keeps showing, 2009 Heisman winner Mark Ingram, stays on the board, tempting some team to get him.
Since A. J. Green and Jones went at four and six, respectively, no receiver has been taken off the board. The Chiefs were ready to pick Baldwin, the six-foot-five-inch receiver Belichick mentioned to Dimitroff, at number 27, which happened to be Atlanta’s original pick. But Baltimore and Chicago thought they agreed to a trade, with the Bears moving up by swapping first-rounders with the Ravens, 29 for 26, and giving the Ravens a fourth-round selection as well. The Bears failed to properly contact the league to confirm the trade, and so the Ravens, unaware that they were on the clock and not the Bears, sat as their allotted time expired. When that happens and the team has no card to submit in New York, the next team in line can skip ahead. That’s how the Chiefs got Baldwin, to the delight of Haley, at number 26. The Ravens, quickly realizing what happened, had their card ready for pick 27 so they couldn’t be skipped again and denied their target, cornerback Jimmy Smith. The mix-up between the Ravens and Bears has all the draft rooms talking, with the consensus being that the Bears were solely responsible for the screwup.
The Chiefs are thrilled to get Baldwin, at 27 or 26. Haley has gotten the most out of receivers, of all personality types. He used to push Larry Fitzgerald so hard in Arizona that Fitzgerald playfully offered him hundred-dollar bills before team meetings so his mistakes wouldn’t be pointed out in front of his teammates. He helped receivers think about the nuances of the position, like turning to look back for the ball while still maintaining leverage. When he looked at Baldwin, he saw some of the traits and growth potential in him that he saw and brought out in others. And if the team had someone like Baldwin against the Ravens in the play-offs, it wouldn’t have been so easy for Baltimore to take Kansas City’s Pro Bowl receiver, Dwayne Bowe, out of the game.
At 28, the Patriots get their wish: a trade partner. It’s New Orleans on the phone, and it’s relative Mardi Gras in the usually serene Patriots draft room. The Saints want Ingram, the only running back the Chiefs had unanimously praised in their draft meetings on Valentine’s Day. It really was a love story that day, as one scout gushed, “He’s a coach’s dream because the message is not diluted in any way. He is the guy who believes the team is way more important than the individual award. He’s a grounded guy that never bought into the hype of his Heisman. He’s respectful and prompt. He treats everyone like they are the most important person in the world. He does everything the way a pro should.” He sounded like someone the Patriots would like, and they do like him. But they like the deal even more. The Saints are offering next year’s first and this year’s second, at number 56. Belichick accepts the offer.
All three friends have completed their work in round one. They’ll stare over the boards once more, go to bed, and come back tomorrow to do it all again.
On Friday morning, the hottest draft topic in America is the Atlanta Falcons. Their trade for Julio Jones produced easy debate fodder for local and national columnists, bloggers, talking heads, talk-show hosts, and anyone who wanted to say it in 140 characters or fewer in a tweet. The question was simple: Did Dimitroff give up too much or not? Those on his side said he was bold. Otherwise, he was a fool.
He spends most of a gorgeous, sun-splashed Georgia morning and early afternoon inside. He does interview after interview in which he wants to hammer a couple of major points: He didn’t make this decision on a whim, and neither he nor anyone else in the organization is trying to send the message that Jones is the one player who will take the Falcons to the Super Bowl. By the time Dimitroff finishes his interviews, Jones has arrived at Falcons headquarters in Flowery Branch.
One hour before they will go into their draft room for the beginning of the second round, Dimitroff, Blank, and Smith are on a dais with the newest Falcon, the enthusiastic and personable Jones. They have finished a press conference, which Jones handled like a pro, and now it’s time to take pictures. There’s one with all of them together, one with Blank and Jones, and another with Dimitroff, at five-nine, with the six-two Jones. Showing that he’s read up on the team, Jones looks at the camera and also manages to say, through a smile, to Dimitroff, “Come on, boss. Rise up with your height.”
The top draft pick already seems comfortable with where he was taken in the draft and all the expectations that come with the selection. And now he’s even quoting the key line from the team’s marketing campaign? To tease the GM? Not bad.
If it isn’t clear just how much the Falcons surrendered on day one to get Jones, the empty seats in the back of the draft room on day two say it all.
Atlanta makes a row of seats available to limited partners, advisers, and some of their friends on draft day. In New England and Kansas City, this would be considered downright treasonous. But no one is here on day two. In fact, limited partner Warrick Dunn was spotted at the airport in the morning, wearing jeans, sandals, a polo, and sunglasses, hustling out of town with his golf clubs in tow. That’s what happens when you pick sixth and your next selection is not until number 91. On paper, the eighty-five-selection gap between picks doesn’t begin to capture the amount of waiting in the draft room. There is a lot of time to talk, a lot of time to watch, and a lot of time to make other plans. During one lull, team owner Arthur Blank told Dimitroff that he was taking his son to dinner and that he’d be back in a little while.
As he watches the draft unfold, Dimitroff sometimes goes to the phones and dials Kansas City, for no other reason than to gossip with Pioli about what’s happening. They’re like two buddies who are watching the same movie in different cities, with occasional calls to say, “Did you see that?” There aren’t many reasons to do that in round two, although a few Atlanta scouts are surprised that Belichick used his second-round pick on Dowling rather than trade it. A couple scouts had side bets and placed odds on the likelihood of a trade. They were amazed at the ease with which Belichick not only made trades in the current draft but stacked them for later as well. The Patriots did receive calls on the first pick of round two but weren’t tempted to move on any offer.
Vital walks around the room with a sheet of paper, keeping personal notes on what teams are doing. Through the fifties, he says he likes what Tampa has done so far, drafting two defensive ends, including Da’Quan Bowers, the first-round talent who slipped to the second round because of concerns about his knee. He’s not sure what Cleveland has in mind for Jabaal Sheard, a defensive end they took at 37. “He’s playing with one arm,” Vital says. “They drafted him like he’s going to come in and start at defensive end for them. Not gonna happen.” He says the Raiders took a center at 48, Stefen Wisniewski, whom the Falcons had rated as a fourth-or fifth-rounder. The Chiefs and Patriots had back-to-back picks, at 55 and 56, with the Chiefs getting their likely starting center, Florida State’s Rodney Hudson, and the Patriots adding Cal’s Shane Vereen, giving them a dimension at running back that they don’t have anywhere on the roster: a back with track-star speed.
Of all the players on the board with character issues, with the most extreme examples landing in the undraftable skull-and-crossbones column, Vital shakes his head as if this is a classic example of overthinking.
“Character is not a problem if you have a strong organization,” he says. “If you have a soft organization, it’s a problem. What happened at your aunt and uncle’s house when those bad kids came over? They straightened them out, didn’t they? Because they didn’t take any junk. But in a soft house, those bad kids will run the house.”
Falcons head coach Mike Smith had been laughing and joking with Blank and Dimitroff, but now a TV report has obviously sapped his energy: The NFL lockout, which had been lifted by the federal courts a couple days earlier, is now back on. Team president Rich McKay walks into the room and confirms the report and adds more details. The effect on Smith is obvious. When he entered the facility earlier in the day, he was still allowed to speak to his players, go over film with them, and talk with them extensively about off-season workouts. Now he can’t. Smith is essentially checked out for the night. He’s a teacher without students. He seems withdrawn.
With sixteen picks to go before the Falcons’ selection, Dimitroff leaves the room to watch film with Vital, Les Snead, and Dave Caldwell. They return when they’re twelve picks away. Dimitroff provided a clue about what he was thinking earlier when he called to scold Pioli for pick 70, which Kansas City used to take linebacker Justin Houston of Georgia. “You told me you weren’t going to pick him,” Dimitroff says. “We wanted him.” Pioli knows he’s halfway joking. If Kansas City hadn’t taken the pass-rushing Houston, some other team would have, long before Dimitroff and the Falcons got a chance. There’s still lots of waiting. The rows for limited partners and advisers have one person, the son of limited partner Jay Williams. A couple scouts leave the room and return with plates piled with food. The scene seems like a skit for a Scott Pioli roast. It would send him over the edge.
After Kansas City’s pick at 70, the Patriots are a couple slots away from back-to-back picks. With the first one, number 73, they add another running back in Stevan Ridley. The eyebrow-raiser came with number 74, Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett. The quarterback’s talent alone should have made him a top-fifteen selection. But there are lots of stories about Mallett’s character, with lots of whispers about marijuana use, at least, and perhaps other drugs. For the Patriots, Mallett was a risk worth taking. To Vital’s point, if the house is strong, Mallett will fall in line and be either a backup to Tom Brady or a down-the-road replacement for him. If not, the team will move on.
After the Chiefs take Houston, they continue to work on their defense by selecting Florida State defensive end Allen Bailey. The Patriots are scheduled to pick right after Atlanta, at pick 92, but Belichick gives the Falcons’ scouts something else to talk about: He trades the pick, toward the back end of the third round, to the Raiders for a second-rounder in 2012 and a seventh in 2011. “How does he do it?” one of the scouts says with a laugh. It’s finally time for the Falcons to help their team, and they’re looking for a thumper at linebacker who can also help them on special teams. The man they have in mind is another linebacker from Georgia, Akeem Dent. Once again, they have ESPN and the NFL Network on, and once again they have the volume turned up to Gruden, who is talking about their pick.
“The only question,” Gruden says, “is can he play on third down?”
“We don’t give a shit!” Dimitroff says back to the TV.
The draft room bursts into laughter.
They’re done for the night, with their one pick, so they’re now focused on eating chicken wings and chips and watching two TVs. One of them is tuned in to the Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs in an NBA play-off game. The other one still has the NFL Network, where they get even more entertainment from Charles Davis.
“If Bill Belichick had made that Julio Jones trade, we’d all be saying, ‘Look how brilliant that is,’” the analyst says. “But it’s Thomas Dimitroff. Look, he’s a two-time executive of the year. He knows what he’s doing.”
They all applaud and go wild. Then, as if on cue, one of them says, “Okay. Now for the rest of the story: Charles Davis is the analyst for our preseason games.”
It’s time for more laughs. It’s approaching midnight and anything and everything seems funny now. The only person who, noticeably, isn’t enjoying himself is Smith. He sits and talks for a while and then leaves before anyone else, still bummed about the lockout. After a full day of interviews in which he found himself playing defense, a press conference, some phone time with Pioli, and a marathon wait between picks—about twenty-seven hours in real time—Dimitroff heads home. He can’t even say, “This is my plan for tomorrow…,” because it is tomorrow. His wife and son have left town for the week because they know how chaotic the draft can be. By the time Dimitroff mentally replays the day and finally clears his head, it’ll be close to starting time for round three.
One of the biggest differences between fans and executives going into the final day of the draft is that the executives still see a draft board filled with good players. The fans, naturally, are drawn to the early rounds. But there are fewer and fewer familiar names in rounds four through seven, and although the impact players are there on occasion, you’ve got to dig to find them.
On a sunny Saturday morning in Kansas City, Scott Pioli looks forward to the challenge. The general manager is wearing a blue dress shirt, brown slacks, and a light-colored blazer.
“Does this match?” he says with a laugh.
He’s on his way to his office and then to a place that he pointedly calls the draft room for round four. He’s always been bothered by the common and casual use of “war room” to describe what’s happening among pro football personnel types. He won’t acknowledge the term if one of his scouts uses it. “This is our livelihood, but it’s not war,” he says. “When I call a kid and his parents, I’m usually calling with good news. When parents of soldiers get phone calls, it’s usually not a call they want to take. I just don’t like the analogy.”
Before the league officially starts the clock, Pioli will have a pep talk for everyone in the room. He didn’t think the names were pulled off the board quickly enough the day before and thought the overall operation was a step behind, so he wants to make sure everyone is fresh and motivated to finish the draft strong.
He still sees several good players on the board, and he wants to make sure he’s got a clear head and an in-tune room when the Chiefs are in position to get them.
“He is like a fish in water in the draft room,” Clark Hunt says. “That’s his element. And not that he’s better at calling other teams and making trades than anybody else, but he’s very thoughtful and very analytical about how he’s doing that. He has the whole thing in his head, and therefore, when we’re talking about X, Y, Z player in the fourth round, it’s not some isolated, ‘Okay, this is the best available player and we’re just going to have to do this.’ There’s a master plan that’s associated with that player and where he’ll fit in the team. You actually look out over the next four or five years. So, I think he’s the best at that.”
Maybe Pioli gave the speech before the start of round four because he knew how busy he’d be today. There is no time for a warm-up or a throat-clearing. As soon as everyone sits down, the Chiefs’ phones are quickly ringing, and one of the first calls is from in state. The Rams are on the phone, looking to offer their fourth-rounder, 112, for two Chiefs picks, 118 and 223. Pioli is thinking of rejecting the offer, but he wants to wait a minute before definitely saying no. He wonders if it’s really worth it to go up six spots here when he’s confident he can get the player he wants anyway.
He turns down the Saint Louis deal, and the Rams, with new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, pick up a weapon with Hawaii receiver Greg Salas. The Chiefs use 118 on Colorado cornerback Jalil Brown, a team captain, always a plus for Pioli.
Chiefs assistant head coach Mo Carthon is in the draft room. He’s an old-school, no-nonsense coach who played for and coached with Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick with the Giants, Jets, and Patriots. Carthon’s son, Ran, is a pro scout with the Falcons and often draws laughs by imitating his father’s phrases. “And the way he is with other people,” Ran says, “his older brother is like that with him. It’s hilarious.” Carthon tries calling a number that he thinks is Brown’s and doesn’t reach him. He finds him on an alternate number. Carthon gets on the phone and says, “Jalil, what’s going on? What’s up with this number I have for you? You ready to be a KC Chief or what?”
Haley and Hunt follow Carthon to the phone, and after they hang up, Haley turns to Pioli.
“I’m excited about this guy,” Haley says.
“Oh, yeah,” Pioli replies. “He’s got a chance to be a good player.”
If he plays as well as Pioli and Haley think, Brown will be another reliable player in a secondary that has added Eric Berry, Javier Arenas, and Kendrick Lewis in the last year. The unit also has one of the top corners in the league in Brandon Flowers.
The Chiefs are now looking to deal up. It never hurts to have good passers in an increasingly pass-happy league, and the Chiefs want Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi, but their next pick is not until 135. That’s a ways off, and who knows what Buffalo is going to do quarterback-wise at 133? The Chiefs want to move up into the 120s, so they call Baltimore and Ozzie Newsome, sitting at 123. They offer 135 and one of the two seventh-rounders they have in 2012. Newsome says he’ll think about it, and he calls back with a counter. Pioli repeats what he says out loud so someone can write it down: “Instead of the seventh this year … they’d like our fifth next year…” Pioli is shaking his head no as he’s talking but still tells Newsome that he’ll call him back.
He calls back in ninety seconds.
“Hey, Oz,” he says. “We’re gonna pass.”
They thought they had a deal done with Houston, picking at 127. Pioli even called to New York and told the Chiefs’ man on the scene, “Write this name down: Ricky Stanzi, Iowa.” But when they called back to confirm while Houston was on the clock, the Texans bailed and picked Virginia Tech corner Rashad Carmichael.
“Can you tear up that card?” Pioli says to the guys in New York. “Well, can you keep it hidden?”
This is all great news for scout Jim Nagy, who saw his guy Rodney Hudson picked yesterday and has been campaigning for Stanzi all year. No, the Chiefs haven’t been able to swing a deal to get him, but he’s inching closer to them naturally. The Colts call and offer next year’s fourth for 135. Pioli doesn’t like it. “Too many good players left on this board,” he says. The calls keep coming. This time it’s Dallas: They want 135 and are willing to give up 143 and 176. But the Chiefs can see Stanzi approaching, and as long as Buffalo doesn’t take him, they should have their guy.
The Bills take running back Johnny White from North Carolina.
Nagy beams as he pulls the name off the board.
At pick 138, two selections before the Chiefs are scheduled to be on the clock again, the Patriots pull off a stunner. They take the most talented tackle on the board, by far, in six-foot-five-inch, 360-pound Marcus Cannon from Texas Christian University. Cannon is on the board because a couple months earlier, at the scouting Combine, doctors discovered that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Before the diagnosis, he was expected to be taken long before the fifth. Belichick checked with the Patriots’ doctors and was told that he shouldn’t be afraid of the diagnosis. Besides, Belichick, a Red Sox fan, didn’t have to look very far for an example of a pro athlete who had beaten cancer: Jon Lester, an All-Star pitcher, found out he had cancer in 2006 and won the deciding game of the World Series in 2007.
At pick 140, the Chiefs grab another of Nagy’s guys, Oregon State linebacker Gabe Miller. Miller is raw, having played tight end for part of his career. Nagy got nervous when Miller went through his individual workout and turned in a phenomenal performance. It was so good that it was something the scouts talked about around the office. When Miller visited Kansas City, he noticed a Total Hockey book on the desk of Haley, a Western Pennsylvanian who is partial to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Miller is a hockey fan, too, and he and Haley connected with inside hockey talk.
“You ready to come out here and talk some hockey?” Haley says as he welcomes Miller to the NFL. “That’s what did it, Gabe. Your hockey background.”
Phil Emery doesn’t crack a smile with the announcement of pick 145, but he easily could. His old team, the Falcons, took running back Jacquizz Rodgers, who is listed at five feet six inches. Rodgers was one of the running backs Emery had in mind when he had the animated discussion with two other scouts during the Chiefs’ draft meetings in February. Dimitroff was going to find out if he had a true change-of-pace back to complement big Michael Turner or if he had someone who could help Parcells retell one of his favorite draft jokes. Whenever a team took multiple undersized guys, Parcells would quip, “You can fit your entire draft class in a VW.”
As the draft moves on, the Hunts break to the cafeteria for Chinese food that has been especially catered for the draft. They see coaches Romeo Crennel and Anthony Pleasant, speaking with one of yesterday’s third-rounders, Justin Houston, the linebacker from Georgia. Clark introduces himself and says he looks forward to seeing Houston play.
“And I’m going to make sure I give you a reason to notice me on the field,” Houston says. “I’m excited to play.”
Back in the draft room, Pioli is swinging a wooden Louisville Slugger with his name inscribed on it. It’s likely a gift from one of his best friends, Mark Shapiro, the president of the Cleveland Indians. The bat is helping him think. He’s been fortunate in that he’s gotten what he’s wanted so far with Brown, Stanzi, and Miller. Now, as he holds his bat, he’s thinking about a player who would be a hard-nosed catcher if he played Major League Baseball: Jason Kelce, the center who reminds Pioli of Dan Koppen. He thinks Kelce will be there for the Chiefs in the sixth round, at pick 199.
As Pioli looks at the board and talks with Haley, someone shouts out, “Kelce just went.” Pioli stops in midsentence. “Huh? He did? Who took him?” He’s told Philadelphia. “I’ll have to give them a call in the next couple days,” he says. “That’s a good pick.”
The new target for 199, the same spot the Patriots selected Tom Brady, is nose tackle Jerrell Powe from Ole Miss. Pioli tells someone to call David Price, the team’s athletic trainer, so they can get a quick medical report on Powe. Price enters the room a couple minutes later and appears to be winded. “You wanna have a seat?” Pioli cracks. “That trip up the stairs really knocked you out.” Pioli and Haley illustrate to the doctor what a nose tackle does with a hand punch, and they want to be assured that Powe doesn’t have any medical concerns that would prevent him from doing that. They are satisfied that Powe checks out and then wait to see if he falls to them.
Powe was so popular on the Ole Miss campus and in town that he was called the mayor there. Pioli often became incensed when scouts dismissed a player as a character problem or not bright without first doing the research. The Chiefs’ scouts were thorough in their breakdown of Powe, who at times struggled in the classroom because of attention deficit disorder. The Chiefs found that he was a determined student, despite the disorder, and had the respect of everyone around him because of the way he competed in the classroom.
When the Chiefs draft Powe, they tell him they want him to compete against something else: calories.
“Keep yourself in shape,” Haley warns him. “You can eat yourself out of the league before you ever get into it. It’s easy to gain weight, Jerrell. It’s hard to lose it. Let’s get you up here playing some real football. Away from all those spread offenses where all the linemen are moving sideways.”
Pioli is heading toward the end of his day. There is still a seventh-round selection for the Chiefs, and the GM consults with Haley and Carthon. He asks Carthon what fullback he liked most and he says it’s Shane Bannon of Yale.
The day has gone smoothly, perfectly even. But two minutes before going on the clock in the seventh, the phones go dead.
“We’re sorry, all circuits are busy…” is all they hear.
Emily Claver, Pioli’s administrative assistant, walks into the room and notices the stressed faces. She looks at the phones, which are all tested and programmed by the league, and says, “Let’s see. I’ll try the line that’s marked ‘Backup Line’ and see what happens.”
She presses the button that is clearly marked, yet no one had seen it. It’s a perfect connection. They all stare. Claver smiles and goes back to her office. Silly boys.
“You have a name yet?” asks the Chiefs’ man in New York.
“Yeah, relax,” Pioli says, and the room laughs.
It’s the end of the day, and you can tell they all believe it’s been a good one. They have spent months at this, scouting and debating and paring the prospects. Now, even if it’s just for a couple hours, they can exhale. They’re even in the mood to annoy Pioli. He had mentioned earlier in the day that certain songs bother him because they have the ability to crawl into your head and not go away. So when he left the room, Joel Collier, the assistant general manager, finds a live version of one of the songs Pioli was referring to, “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang. When Pioli reenters five minutes later, the song is playing. Five minutes after that, he’s whistling it.
Some of the scouts ask what others are doing for dinner, and some set up trips to the airport in the morning. After Pioli changes from his business attire and digests the day, he heads home to see his wife and daughter. Well after his daughter has gone to bed, he goes to his laptop and calls up a Kansas City Star story that insinuates that Powe is a character problem. He’s more hurt for Powe than he is angry, knowing that it’s one of those generalizations that he’d never let his scouts get away with.
On Sunday morning, with the three-day draft flurry over, it’s back to the normal thoughts. It’s back to plotting and scouting and scheming against thirty-one other teams in the league, who have the same salary cap and restrictions that you do. Two of those thirty-one decision-makers happen to be two of your best friends. You know how they think, you know how adaptable they are, you know their families, and you love them. Genuinely love them.
But in this business, at some point, your love is forced to be conditional. You want to root for your friends to reach the very top of their profession, but if that happens, it means you haven’t done it. Once upon a time, in Cleveland and New England, it wasn’t an issue. They were all on the same team then. Now they all support one another and try to win championships independent of one another.
Who knows where it will go from here? Maybe one January Pioli’s Chiefs and Belichick’s Patriots can meet in the conference championship game, with the winner taking the Lamar Hunt trophy and earning the right to play Dimitroff’s Falcons in the Super Bowl.
That’s just part of the story, though. The other part is seeing what can happen when an idea is expanded and permitted to grow. It was the idea of creating a way of doing things that drew Belichick to Cleveland, and then Pioli after him, and then Dimitroff after that. They didn’t know that a mature idea would take them on a ride through NFL history, winning game after game, week after week, and compiling titles. They built many teams, some better than others, three of them the absolute best, and one of them nearly perfect. They built a lifelong bond, too, one that transcends the rings and trophies that they’ve spent their lives working for.