GM's friendship with ODU coach may help Chiefs at NFL combine

[T-post Tom]

Some interesting insights....

GM's friendship with ODU coach may help Chiefs at NFL combine
Tom Robinson

Kansas City Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli will stake his job on the new players he identifies for his team this week at the NFL scouting combine.

Pioli is recruiting in the truest sense, digging for franchise keystones, and it's critical his intuition be sharp. The Chiefs were 4-12 in Pioli's first season, after all. And as he said a few times Thursday, "When you win four games, everybody has to do their job better."

To that end, Pioli thinks he ultimately will be better thanks to his tight relationship with Old Dominion coach Bobby Wilder, which isn't as random as it sounds.

"Bobby and I have had long conversations about talent evaluation, recruiting and talent procurement," Pioli said. "Whether you're recruiting or scouting, there's evaluation of human beings involved, and Bobby's very, very good at that."

Nearly 25 years of contact with Wilder brings Pioli to that assessment honestly. They played I-AA college ball in the Northeast against each other. Crossed paths again as graduate assistants - Wilder at Boston College, Pioli at Syracuse - and then as full-time assistants, bonding a friendship throughout.

Eventually, they heard different calls and their paths diverged. Wilder tracked his muse from Maine, his alma mater, to Norfolk, while the pro personnel business intrigued Pioli and drove him to Kansas City through Cleveland, Baltimore, New York and New England.

"Scott loved the recruiting more so than he loved the coaching," Wilder remembered Thursday over the phone. "He was always going to be a pro guy."

Yet, Pioli flavored his comments in the combine's media center with frequent nods to the kind of collegial stuff Wilder's public is used to hearing from him, i.e. identify the right people first, and let that lead you.

That's why Pioli referenced "chemistry" a lot, that ever-popular, often-elusive quality within a team or program. It's what Pioli said he wants most in his locker room and in his coaching suites, way more than he wants go-along-to-get-along types.

In fact, Pioli said he craves healthy disagreement among his staff, from head coach Todd Haley on down. No surprise, really, considering crusty Bill Parcells is Pioli's father-in-law.

"Charlie (Weis) disagrees with everyone, about everything," Pioli said, laughing, about his new offensive coordinator, the ex-Notre Dame coach. "We want to hear 'no'; we need to hear 'no.' A lot of people say they want that, but not everyone does want it. I do. None of us has all the answers."

Find smart, reliable people who know what being a pro means. Put them together. Let them think, wonder, squabble and debate. Watch the level rise. That's what the blueprint says, anyway.

Sounds to Wilder like the Pioli he's always known, and the model Pioli and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick followed for nine seasons before Pioli left a year ago for Kansas City.

"This is a typical Scott Pioli project," Wilder said of the Chiefs. "They're going to be built to be a consistent winner. He's not going to go with people who can't pass the character test. He's going to be smart with his money. And he's going to be smart with his younger players, as far the older players he mixes in.

"Then in the end, as it does for all of us, it comes down to quarterback play, whether you get over the top."

The friends will climb together, yes, trading wisdom as it comes through phone calls and e-mails. But they know they will always be on separate mountains.

"I tried to push him toward (the pro game)," Pioli said, "but Bobby always said, 'No, I like my job. I like what I'm doing.' That's one of the things I respect about Bobby: He knows what he wants. He's always had his goals, always had his plan."

A plan, Pioli said, he'll always monitor.

"I check the scores," he said with a smile, "every weekend."

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/02/gms-...fs-nfl-combine