War Room

by Michael Holley

  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 footba
ll. 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.

  Epilogue

  On July 22, two days before the end of the NFL’s four-and-a-half-month lockout, dozens of people on both sides of the multibillion-dollar dispute arrived in Newton, Massachusetts. It was one of the hottest days in the history of the Boston area, with the temperature in some parts of the region climbing to 103 degrees. It was one of the rare lockout days when everyone was humbled, and talking heads were replaced by bowed ones.

  It seemed as if the entire league, accompanied by an incredible cross-section of celebrities, was in town to honor the life of Myra Hiatt Kraft, wife of Patriots owner Robert Kraft. On July 20, Myra, who had been married to Robert for forty-eight years, died of cancer. She was sixty-eight years old. The daughter of a local philanthropist, Myra was the conscience of the Patriots and one of the most beloved figures in New England.

  Her funeral service proved that she was capable of bringing people together, side by side in some cases, and smoothing over any perceived gaps between them. On one side of Temple Emanuel, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sat near his negotiating adversary, DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association. In another section of the temple, many players who had left New England with sour tastes in their mouths, such as Richard Seymour, Drew Bledsoe, and Willie McGinest, returned to pay their respects and were often nearby Bill Belichick, the man who either traded them or allowed them to leave as free agents. Local politicians, including the mayor of Boston and the governor of Massachusetts, were among the mourners as well as those known for being critical of politicians, such as syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh and real estate giant Donald Trump.

  Long before the lockout was nearing its conclusion, Robert Kraft had been praised behind the scenes, by both sides, for his determination to get a deal done. Those working closely with him knew what was happening in his personal life, how he would negotiate with purpose and passion but sometimes leave sessions early so he could spend time with his wife. He had the respect of Smith, who felt that Kraft was much more interested in arriving at a deal than walking away with a “win.” Most people with knowledge of the proposed collective bargaining agreement’s details credited Kraft with engineering a proposal that would preserve the 2011 season and give the league ten years of labor peace.

  As important as the end of the lockout was to fans, players, owners, and anyone associated with the game, the details seemed inconsequential now as Kraft walked down the center aisle of the temple, escorted by his four sons, his daughters-in-law, and his grandchildren. His gait was slightly unsteady, and his face was ashen. Years earlier, in a Boston café, he had caught the attention of his future wife by winking at her, a spark in his eyes. She had seen that playful and knowing wink many times in the subsequent years as her husband made savvy business deals, including a multifaceted one, almost two decades earlier, that eventually landed him the Patriots in 1994. But as he walked down the aisle, trailing his wife’s coffin, his eyes were glazed and sad; he was clearly heartbroken. His family spoke eloquently about the sense of social justice that Myra brought to her family and everyone who met her. Jonathan, the eldest son and Patriots team president, recalled carrying his mother, a petite woman, away from trouble in South Africa in the early 1980s because she was loudly questioning a police officer on the practice of apartheid. “My mother,” Jonathan said during his tribute, “she lived her life looking at the world through empathetic eyes.”

  After the emotional service, it was hard to imagine either side being in the mood to negotiate as intensely as they had over the previous 129 days. After a weekend of looking over what Kraft and his fellow owners had proposed, Smith and the players officially agreed to the deal on Monday, July 25. What it meant was that teams would soon be able to welcome back their players under contract and make bids for those who weren’t. The Patriots, Chiefs, and Falcons all had surprising forays into the trade and free-agent markets.

  The Patriots drew the most attention, causing eyes to bulge and jaws to drop, with a couple of transactions. They traded for Washington Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, known throughout football for being highly paid (he made $35 million in twenty games with the Redskins), high risk (he had
a sexual assault case hovering as this book went to print), and often underachieving. When playing to his potential, Haynesworth was considered an All-Pro talent, but second-year Washington head coach Mike Shanahan was so eager to get the defensive lineman out of the organization that the price tag for the Patriots was just a fifth-round pick in 2013.

  Belichick could see the obvious risks in acquiring the player, but he also weighed the substantial payoff of getting an in-shape and focused Haynesworth. The 335-pound lineman arrived in town during a time of transition for the Patriots defense. Belichick always preferred a defense, whether with a four- or three-man line, with two-gapping principles. In essence, it was a disciplined defense that required interior linemen to stay square at the point of attack and control the gaps on either side of them. The new approach in Foxboro allowed the interior linemen to attack and go upfield. Belichick always wanted his system to be adaptable to the times, and the new defensive approach appeared to be the antidote to the Patriots’ third-down defense in 2010, which was ranked near the bottom of the league.

  On the other side of the ball, the Patriots added a veteran receiver who entered the 2011 season with 751 career receptions, the twenty-eighth best number in league history. The cost of acquiring him was also low, fifth-and sixth-round picks. Those were the black-and-white details of the acquisition; the full-color story came with the name of the player: Chad Ochocinco (né Johnson), who had gained popularity more for his entertaining antics, such as racing a horse and riding a bull, than his play on the field. In other words, he was known for things that the Patriots usually frowned on. Ochocinco seemed to accept that he would have to conform to what was perceived to be the Patriot Way, which was bad news for his millions of Twitter followers; they could no longer expect to receive updates that would even hint at anything insightful during practice, in the locker room, or in the meeting rooms. Belichick may have intentionally mispronounced Twitter when asked about the social media platform by reporters, but he knew the power of it, and he made a point of telling players to be cautious, and preferably bland, when communicating with the public.