ChiefsPlanet - Football Belichick tree to fall on him?

INDIANAPOLIS - The influence of Bill Belichick and the Patriots is obvious at the NFL Combine. When former Patriots vice president of player personnel Scott Pioli, now the pigskin pooh-bah of the Kansas City Chiefs, was asked yesterday what kind of players he's looking for, it was as if the words came directly from the Patriot handbook.

"Big, strong, tough, smart, disciplined football players," said Pioli.

The limbs of the Belichick tree have branched out on their own, but they haven't forgotten their player evaluation roots, and that means the Patriots could find themselves in a fraternal fight for the smart, tough, football-loving players that they covet.

Pioli is in Kansas City, former Patriots director of college scouting Thomas Dimitroff is the Atlanta Falcons general manager, former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels became the coach of the Denver Broncos in January, and the Cleveland Browns tandem of coach Eric Mangini and general manager George Kokinis both got their start under Belichick.

All those teams, except Atlanta, which has the 24th overall selection, pick ahead of the Patriots, who are at No. 23. All of them except the Falcons are planning to run at least some variation of the 3-4 defense, so they could be in the market for the same players as the Patriots, who need to continue to get younger and faster on defense.

"I think it comes into play," said McDaniels. "But I don't think it affects your evaluation process of the player. In the draft, if there are teams right in front of us that are all 3-4 teams, then you've got to start to think about, 'Well, if we want that guy, but there are three teams that want him too . . .'

"Then you might have to do some strategic things to get in front of them to do something. As you're evaluating the players, you just have to make up your mind as to whether you feel like the guy could fit into your system and be effective."

Pioli tried to downplay the idea that he'd be fighting his former partner, Belichick, for players. He said the whole "smart, tough, disciplined" description is just a general template and that a lot of teams inside and outside the Belichick Tree look for players with those traits, but those players also have to fit what the team is doing scheme-wise.

"I don't think the market is cornered on that," said Pioli. "I think a lot of people are looking for smart players, a lot of people are looking for tough players, and then it's a matter of finding them and making sure that their type of toughness and their type of intelligence fits into your specific philosophy because there are different types of intelligence and because you run different systems, it will fit differently."

Pioli said reaching for a player because you're worried a like-minded team will take him is a good way to end up making a mistake.

"We're looking for big, tough, smart, disciplined football players, but what we're going to do schematically is not necessarily going to be the same thing that we did in New England," said Pioli.

Dimitroff, who selected AP Offensive Rookie of the Year Matt Ryan and starting left tackle Sam Baker with a pair of first-round picks last year, said the Belichick Connection can be a benefit when it comes to draft time.

Belichick and director of player personnel Nick Caserio might be more plugged in than anybody else in the league, which could help them.

"You develop allies in this league," said Dimitroff. "I think allies are an important part of developing and building a team, so I think it's kind of exciting to have some of these people out here that have had a connection with the Patriot paradigm and have moved on, and we'll continue to discuss things at certain levels, and at other levels we'll be very, very competitive."

Dimitroff, who knows as much as anybody about how the Patriots approach the combine and the draft since he was the team's director of college scouting for five seasons, said that while the Belichick system is certainly evident in the organizations of his disciples, that doesn't mean the player evaluation approaches are identical.

"I think that Bill's system is something that a lot of us have taken quite a bit from, and I think a lot of us have adjusted it quite a bit to our liking," said Dimitroff.

Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at [email protected].

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