War Room

by Michael Holley

  They’ve had a rare day with no office time for Pioli, and soon they will head across town to sit down for burgers. But first Pioli pulls the car in front of one of the city’s restored architectural marvels and shares a glimpse of a dream. He’s parked in front of Union Station, a true beauty. Its ceilings, ninety-five feet high, seem to be adjoined to the sky. It has thirty-five-hundred-pound chandeliers, which is one thousand pounds heavier than the combined weight of the Chiefs’ starters on the offensive and defensive lines. It’s a structure that looks important, built to host bustle and big events.

  One day, Pioli says, this will be the place where Kansas City celebrates a Super Bowl title for the Chiefs. He can envision a main stage in front of the station and thousands and thousands of fans, from Missouri and Kansas, occupying spots around the stage and on the hill that overlooks it.

  Pioli doesn’t make a habit of sharing this vision when he’s on the job. The message might be twisted. People might think he’s trying to say that the Chiefs are on the doorstep of winning the Super Bowl. But what he really wants is to be a part of a winner in this region, for an owner whose father literally spoke “Super Bowl” into existence. It doesn’t seem right to him that Clark Hunt doesn’t even have memories of the last time the Chiefs won a championship. Neither does Pioli. He and Hunt were even younger than Mia when the Chiefs upset the Vikings in January 1970. The closest Hunt has gotten to that Sunday in New Orleans is the home videos he’s been shown. The game was such a part of another era that it started at two thirty in the afternoon central time. These days, that’s the time slot for hour three of a marathon pregame show.

  The only way to make the celebration happen is to work at it, adding the right players to the roster, and that process will continue tomorrow. That’s when Pioli, Phil Emery, and all the scouts will head to the office for an entire week of draft meetings. It’s when they’ll begin determining how the draft board should be stacked and which players should be pushed up or down. Pioli will be more than prepared for that. Tomorrow. For now, he’s placing a call to local resident and longtime family friend May Tveit.

  “You’ve got to help us out here, Ms. May,” he says as he wheels away from Union Station. “We’re in the mood for a good burger, and we know you know the place.”

  May is cleaning her house. She was focused on that until Pioli mentioned burgers, and now she has a taste for one. She goes over a few possibilities before she gives the final answer.

  “You’ve got to go to Westport Flea Market,” she says.

  Pioli and Mia are just a few miles away from the one-of-a-kind Kansas City establishment: a burger joint in the middle of a flea market. You can get discount items, you can sing karaoke, you can play cards, and you can get a ten-ounce burger that uses topnotch beef from a local butcher shop, McGonigle’s. As Pioli and his daughter walk in, not too many heads turn. It’s not that kind of place. Some people are watching TV and others are digging into those burgers. When it’s time for Pioli to pick up his order from the chef’s station, the cook does a double take.

  “You look familiar,” he says. “You a cop?”

  Pioli laughs.

  “You are a cop, aren’t you?” he says.

  Pioli swears that he’s not and says that he works for the Chiefs.

  “Oh! You’re Scott Pioli! Good to see ya, man. Welcome.”

  Father and daughter are no strangers to quirky burger joints or exploring new places in a city. They did that all the time in New England, and Pioli even got Mia to come with him on Thanksgiving mornings to serve food to the homeless. He realizes that she’s much more privileged than he ever was, so he and Dallas are conscious of raising a child who is grounded despite the high-profile position her father has. They’re doing just fine so far. Mia politely asks for a dollar so she can operate one of those claw machines that grasps at stuffed animals. She goes to a waitress, hands over a bill, and asks for four quarters. She whiffs a couple times, with the claws proving to be impossibly slippery, and laughs, and her father laughs with her. It’s almost time to leave.

  “I just want to say it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Pioli,” one of the waitresses says. “Thanks for coming in.”

  “Thanks for saying that,” Pioli says. “You can call me Scott. Mr. Pioli is in New York.”

  Their afternoon is over, and they can head home and honestly tell Dallas that they had a blast at a flea market. After he and Dallas and Mia have hung out for a couple hours and Mia has gone off to bed, Pioli goes into his home office and begins to focus on the next day. He can’t help coming home to work: The Chiefs’ IT staff has made it so his desktop is plugged in to all systems at the team’s facility, so whatever he can do at the office he can do at home. He knows the next day is going to be busy. Not only will he be breaking down players with Emery and the scouts, he’ll be trying to finalize a deal that will make Jim Zorn the Chiefs’ new quarterbacks coach.

  Pioli will use his elaborate highlighting system to help him better process and organize all the information he’ll be getting tomorrow and for the next couple months.

  “I learned the system in college,” he says. “I’m a visual guy. It’s how I actually started getting good grades. It keeps me structured, puts clarity and boundaries to things, and it eliminates noise.”

  He has no illusions of who the Chiefs are as he prepares for his third draft with them.

  “We’re just not good enough,” he says. “At the end of the year, at the end of this season, when we couldn’t sneak up on teams and we played good teams, we felt it. What do we need? There aren’t many positions we can look at and say we don’t need the help there. We’ve got holes today, but we also have holes that are a year away. I’ve seen a great roster. We are so far away from a great roster. So far away.

  “You know, we couldn’t get anyone open to catch a pass in the play-offs.”

  It’s going to take some part of great for Union Station to be transformed into that Chiefs carnival that he dreams of. Tomorrow, he and his staff will begin closing the gap.

  Pioli arrives at work just before seven on Monday morning. He has a few things he wants to take care of before the draft meetings start, and one of them is trying to reach Nathan Whitaker, the agent for Zorn, so they can begin to negotiate a contract. He also needs to contact Tripp MacCracken, the Chiefs’ director of football administration, an experienced negotiator who can help shepherd the Zorn deal. Throughout the day, Pioli’s plan is to be a presence in the meetings, stay in touch with MacCracken, and keep Hunt and head coach Todd Haley in the loop.

  “I’ve never seen somebody who works this hard,” Hunt says. “And at times in my life I’ve thought I’ve worked hard. But being around Scott I’ve realized that I was slacking off. The guy is constantly working on something, and this is not somebody who is trying to break into the business and show that he belongs.”

  Just before heading into the meetings, Pioli receives a call from Whitaker and they begin to talk numbers. Haley is a huge Zorn fan and he believes the hire is important for the continued development of Matt Cassel. Haley has been an offensive coach his entire career, but he doesn’t consider himself a quarterback guru; he considers Zorn to be one of the best. There’s a reasoned, conversational tone between Pioli and Whitaker, and based on the sound of things it seems as if they’re well on their way to getting something done by the end of the day. The Chiefs have to be careful, though, because Zorn is also being pursued by the Titans and Jaguars.

  Pioli walks into a draft room that seems prepped for the long day. There’s a whiteboard with the Chiefs’ depth chart, appropriately written with an easy-to-erase marker, and there’s a board for every team in the league. There are magnetic strips with the names of every college player they’ll discuss now and going forward. Between all the scouts and assistant general manager Joel Collier, there are dozens of binders and notebooks on a large conference table. There’s also plenty of coffee, tea, and water. Before he officially begins the meetings, Pioli reaches into a
box and hands out nine personalized “AFC West Champs” game balls for the scouts, which leads to their applause.

  When it comes to their reports during these meetings, the scouts are expected to read a general summary of what they’ve observed from the player in person and on tape, as well as what they’ve gleaned from head coaches, strength coaches, teammates, and other sources. (The best scouts have as many sources as investigative reporters.) Each scout’s report is always expected to include answers to the following six questions:

  What will this player’s role be as a Chief? Will the role change from year one to year two? How many downs can he be expected to play? Which current player on the roster will he beat out? What’s his value on special teams? Does he have positional versatility?

  After they give their reports, some type of discussion will follow. At times it will be breezy. At others, especially when there’s some inconsistency between the report and the grade, it will be tense.

  Pioli and Emery will sit near each other, and Collier will be at the other end of the table. Emery will lead the discussions.

  The first time Emery became a college director, in Atlanta in 2004, he got a phone call from one of his mentors, Mark Hatley, reminding him that one of the keys to a successful department is listening to everyone’s opinion. Emery listens, closely, and if there’s something that doesn’t seem right he’ll bring it up. He worked at the Naval Academy for seven years, so he’s not a career military man, although he does sound like one: His voice is clear and commanding, and you’ll have to work a little if you want to talk over it. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and black cowboy boots. He’s got an iPad in front of him with his notes as well as reports from the scouts. His recall is impressive. Not only does he remember players he scouted in Chicago and Atlanta before coming here, he can also pinpoint conversations that were had about the player at the time. You get the feeling the iPad isn’t always necessary due to his ability to give historical playbacks from memory. He’s ready for business.

  As he listens to a scout’s report on a running back and then looks at the grades the back has been given, Emery has a problem. A grade of 5 in a category is above average. A grade of 7 is a notch below excellent.

  “I look at the strength and explosion grades,” Emery says, “and then I turn around and look at the power-run grades. I’m confused. No one put his power-run grade above five, but we had two scouts give him a seven in strength and explosion. So we’re not connected there.”

  Emery doesn’t believe an above-average back on power runs can also be exceptional in strength and explosion. He’s either one or the other.

  “Are we talking pound-for-pound strength or overall strength?” one of the scouts asks.

  “I’m talking about true overall strength,” Emery answers. “How does he get to be a five power runner? I mean, if he’s that explosive?”

  “Well, because he’s not that big,” the scout says.

  “That’s getting back to my point,” Emery counters. “I don’t see him being able to anchor. But we have two sevens on him when it comes to strength and explosion. And then I look down at the power run and you guys are saying, ‘Well, it’s because he’s small.’ Well, then for the NFL projected, I don’t know how he’s a seven. That’s a very good grade. That’s flashes of brilliance for the next level in that category, but we have no higher than a five in power run.

  “With all these little guys, why do we say they’re playmakers when they have these low yards-per-carry averages? They get to the line of scrimmage and they can’t break tackles. So that their averages, even though they have some big plays, their averages are relatively low.”

  Pioli observes this exchange without saying anything. He knows exactly what this is because he’s been through it hundreds of times in his career: It’s a thinking exercise, not a bigfooting tactic. Emery has no interest in having the scouts simply change their grades so they can placate him. Rather, he’s hoping that they can explain or carefully consider their logic. If they can’t make a case for their grades, they’ll change them on their own.

  Emery pauses. He wants to be sure no one is taking this personally. It’s never personal, although it’s easy to feel like it is when your grade is being questioned in front of the group. But all the scouts know that Emery’s diligence has nothing to do with trying to make himself look good at someone else’s expense. What he’s trying to encourage is depth, consistency, and thoroughness when it comes to reports and grades. He has worked for Pioli and Dimitroff, two men who cringe at inconsistencies. They expect this area of the draft forest to be completely cleared by the time they begin strategizing with their picks.

  “I’m just bringing it up because that’s your grade,” Emery says. “I’m not just saying it. Because I’ve got a four on him. You’ve got a five, but you’ve got a seven over here. And basically we’re looking at the same quantity. And I’m talking about it from a perspective of being on the same page as a staff so that we’re all looking at things the same way so that we can have conversation. That’s all.”

  When another small-back discussion comes up later, Pioli has an idea that he says he wants to see executed after the draft. He tells one of the scouts to supervise a research project done on undersized backs.

  “What are the common physical traits? Whether it’s yards after contact or something else. Off the top of my mind, a number of these undersized guys are making it because yards after contact is a pretty important thing for them,” Pioli says. “That’s a Darren Sproles thing and that’s a Maurice Jones-Drew thing, too.

  “But I want to know who made it. Why did they make it? Or why you think they made it. I think it would be a great thing for us as we go into training camp. As we do the project, it’s also important to understand what type of offense they played in college, especially with all the spread crap out there right now.”

  They move on to other areas. At one point, Pioli applauds scout Terry Delp for consistently including a player’s special-teams value in his reports and reminds others that they need to do the same. When they get to offensive linemen, Emery says of one prospect, “At what point should I start watching where he’s not getting slung around?”

  The offensive-line conversation is an important one. The Chiefs clearly need an upgrade at center, where they currently have Casey Wiegmann, who’ll be thirty-eight when training camp begins. Pioli puts the discussion of college centers on hold briefly and asks a few scouts to tell him how they see Wiegmann. They all rave about his durability and toughness and willingness to compete, yet all agree that his days as a starter are over.

  Of the pure centers discussed, there is a silent disagreement with the report on Florida’s Mike Pouncey and agreement on the take of Cincinnati’s Jason Kelce. Pioli is high on both players, but he doesn’t feel compelled to share that during the conversation. Kelce reminds him of Patriots center Dan Koppen, whom the Patriots drafted in the fifth round in 2003. Pouncey, in his mind, is someone who can captain an offensive line and set an aggressive tone for a decade. He listens as the discussion about both players takes place.

  “You know, really, when I think of him, he’s not as good as his brother,” a scout says of Pouncey. “Of course, his brother was an All-Pro as a rookie.”

  Emery asks the scout what he thinks the difference is between Maurkice Pouncey of the Steelers and his twin brother.

  “I think his brother is more savvy,” the scout says. “He’s got more awareness. Part of that could be that this guy played center for one full year, whereas his brother played for three years. Hell, I guess he could be seventy percent of what his brother is and still wind up with a good career.”

  On Kelce, Emery calls himself out on his initial analysis of him. But he followed the advice that Hatley gave him when he first got into scouting: Go back to the tape.

  “I did four more games. And then I watched some tape of the Bears,” Emery says. “The guy reminds me of Olin Kreutz. I mean, it’s not pretty. You
know, his body type and all that stuff. He’s kind of a throwback guy. He’s mean. Nasty. Aggressive. Strong smaller guy with good hips.”

  Pioli is expressionless as Emery is describing Kelce. But during the rundown he has one thought: The guy sounds like a perfect Chief.

  They decide to take a break and eat subs. Pioli goes back to his office and begins working the phones again. He’s making progress with Whitaker, and he just needs MacCracken to double-check with the league to make sure the creative deal he’s structuring for Zorn is legal. In the meantime, he leaves a message for Haley and lets him know the latest. Between phone calls, he’s looking at spreadsheets that show where the Chiefs are spending money. The sheets are looking good. This is part of general-managing, too, and the way Pioli approaches it and other things often gets the owner’s attention.

  “One thing I would say about Scott that has been a complete surprise, because I don’t think this is the kind of thing you can get in an interview, but I’ve never had an employee who is more attuned to looking after my and my family’s interests than Scott is,” Hunt says. “If Scott had a hundred decisions to make, none of which I would ever know about, that could either benefit him or benefit the organization, I’m confident that one hundred out of one hundred, he would make the decision that benefits the organization. And that’s a special quality.”

  It’s the combination of geography and history that makes Pioli protective of the Hunts’ interests. They’re in Dallas, away from the day-to-day Chiefs activity, so he often sees what they can’t. They might be surprised at how far he goes to make sure supplies aren’t being wasted. During the season, he has an employee check the meeting rooms after the players have left. There are always discarded pens in there, and Pioli has them picked up and placed in a shoebox for reuse. The only sign of extravagance is the brand of the shoebox: Gucci. He’s always been meticulous about spending and operating efficiently, but it’s even more of a focus now that he’s here. When he returns to the draft room, he will look across the table at a scout who can explain, better than most, how Pioli has changed over the past few years. He clearly did his job well in New England and had a purpose in what he was doing. But the purpose seems sharper now.