The Draft

by Wil Mara

  “Wait a second,” Jon said, knowing he was expected to put up a fight. “I’m not debating whether Skip has a right to continue making deals for any of his picks. The issue here is whether or not the Broncos, with all due respect to you, Mr. Alderman, should have a shot at the first overall pick in light of their general manager’s behavior during his pursuit of it.”

  Alderman spoke first—“Jon, Brendan Cavanaugh has been released from our organization. Considering the intimate nature of this business, I’m sure his career in professional football is finished. Furthermore, we may receive a fine from the league for his actions. Isn’t that punishment enough? Do you really think denying us a chance to compete for a pick in the draft is also necessary?”

  “I find myself in agreement with Mr. Alderman,” the commissioner inserted. “The whole point of the draft is to compete for the right to obtain new players. I fail to see the value in denying the Broncos this basic right.”

  “But now they know my threshold for it,” Jon pleaded. “That makes things considerably easier for them. I know my drafting duties would be a lot easier if I knew the limits of all the other teams.

  “I agree with you, Jon,” Alderman said. “But whether we had that information or not, we could still continue offering players and picks to the Chargers until ours was the superior package.”

  “Exactly my point,” Moran continued. “If Denver still wanted the pick, it is reasonable to assume they would have continued bidding for it regardless.”

  Jon sighed heavily. “All right, that’s fine,” he said. “So, will you be offering the Chargers another deal, then?”

  “We still have to discuss that,” Alderman said casually, tightening the screws a little more. There was no support from the others, no one willing to play devil’s advocate in his defense. This was how the business side of professional football went sometimes.

  “Skip, if the Broncos tender another offer and there’s still some time left, would you please let me know?” In that moment he realized Alderman could, if he so desired, simply resubmit Cavanaugh’s last package, and he could wait as long as he liked to do so.

  “Yes, I will.”

  And this is exactly what the bastard will do, Jon thought with a truly sinister grin.

  I’m counting on it.

  21

  The NFL made the decision to bring the NFL draft to the Theater at Madison Square Garden, and into public view, in 1971. The idea was the brainchild of first commissioner Pete Rozelle who, while taking his early morning stroll through Central Park one day, overhead three fans engaged in a heated discussion over who the Giants should recruit that season. Gambling that this small group was a microcosm of pro football’s entire fan base, he decided to treat the draft as any other full-scale event. Before that fateful day, it was little more than a corporate huddle held in the top floor of the Sheraton Hotel on West 52nd Street. Then, in 2005, the league held the draft at New York’s Jacob Javits Center. Beyond that, they were open to the idea of “bringing it on the road” in the future, perhaps to a different locale each year.

  Regardless of who plays host, the league goes to great pains to dress up the venue accordingly. The stage becomes a slice of NFL history, featuring a selection of gridiron memorabilia that would have any collector’s tongue wagging. This memorabilia—which includes helmets, jerseys, game balls, plaques, and trophies—is arranged on a set of hodgepodge shelves and is in fact taken from the Hall of Fame displays in Canton, Ohio. It is meticulously guarded and, mere moments after the draft concludes and the cameras switch off, is returned to its shipping containers and whisked away.

  At the front of the stage is a simple podium bearing the league’s shield-like logo. Directly above and behind the podium is a huge viewing screen. There are sympathetic screens high on each wall that faces the audience as well. These will display any announcements made from the podium, plus highlight clips and stats of drafted players. Team flags hang dramatically from the ceiling and over the balconies.

  The area immediately in front of the stage is populated by rows of long tables; thirty-two to be exact. This is where the representatives from each team sit. The league provides them with two telephones, two sets of headphones with mikes, and a small black box with a light that stutters each time the phone rings; a necessity due to the occasionally high noise levels. Other amenities include a jug of ice water and several glasses, a dish or globe filled with candy, and a helmet, placecard, and set of coffee mugs bearing their team’s logo.

  The first section of seats beyond this is occupied by the media. The elite corps sit at the front and, in symbolic deference to the general pecking order, those of less importance or lower profile sit further back. The front rows are where one is likely to find ESPN’s John Clayton or WFAN’s Chris “Mad Dog” Russo. In the back rows you might find a stringer for some local newspaper in Jersey or a guy who has managed to churn out a newsletter for the last six months.

  Beyond the media section are the fans. These are the diehards, the league’s ever faithful, people who think nothing of sacrificing one of the first warm weekends of the year to sit and watch what amounts to little more than a glorified business meeting. It is not unusual for all the Giants fans to flock together, as well as Redskins fans, Jets fans, and so on. When their team makes a pick, they will boo or cheer depending on their collective opinion of the player. More often than not every crowd has a few people who take meticulous notes of the proceedings.

  Other entities include a full cordon of security personnel, a small crew from NFL Films, a slew of league staffers and execs, and a team of familiar faces from ESPN, e.g., Chris Berman and Mike Terico, who will broadcast all seven rounds of the draft; a particularly exhausting task toward the end when there’s very little left to say and the players being taken have, at best, only a microscopic chance of making a starting squad.

  During the weeks and months leading up to the present draft, the only person anyone seemed interested in discussing was McKinley. But the buzz that filled the room as noon slowly approached had switched to the man he might be replacing—Michael Bell. The fact that Bell’s career appeared to be over seemed to stun the crowd. Again they were reminded just how delicate and fleeting life could be in the NFL. With proper care, Bell would heal well enough to live a normal life, but never again would he don a uniform and march a team downfield to another score and on to another glorious victory. In a matter of seconds, his dream had ended. And now, it was generally accepted as fact, his former job would be filled by the phenomenal Christian McKinley.

  Two people sat at the Ravens’ table—an oversized black man with thick-framed glasses and a stubbly beard, and a skinny white kid with a crew cut and a tie who looked like he’d just stepped out of an Ivy League yearbook. They were neither at the top nor the bottom of the Baltimore organization—the black man handled ticket sales, the white kid was a marketing assistant. Contrary to popular belief, teams never sent their top people to the draft, preferring to keep them at headquarters where they could discuss last-minute decisions and other sensitive issues in private and without distraction. They sent people who otherwise had little or nothing to do with the draft and thus could be trusted by virtue of the simple fact that they knew very little and therefore couldn’t give anything away.

  At exactly twenty minutes before noon, the black man reached for the telephone, began tapping in a number, then set the receiver back down. His young colleague glanced at him uncomfortably.

  “Do you think we should we call?”

  The man wiped his face with his hand in a gesture of frustration. “I don’t know.” He checked his watch again. “I can’t believe they haven’t called us.” Willie Pace was a four-time veteran of the draft, yet he had never felt so unprepared. Usually he was given instructions upon arriving at the hotel the night before. Jon Sabino would give him a list of names, categorized by the round in which they would most likely be taken, then call again when it was time to make their pick. But he had received no
list of names this time; only a cryptic, “Just stay by the phone,” and hadn’t heard from anyone since. He couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was something wrong with the phones. Everyone else’s was ringing off the hook, but the two at their table sat in defiant silence. He was afraid to pick them up, though, for fear of blocking a call that might be incoming.

  “I mean, shouldn’t we just go ahead and take McKinley? That’s the only guy they’ve been talking about. Maybe there was a miscommunication, and that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Let’s try my cell phone, just to be sure,” the kid suggested, taking it from its hip case and holding it out. This was Paul Petralia’s first draft, so a crisis only doubled his inherent nervousness. “I don’t want to be wrong. My God, can you imagine?”

  Pace looked at the phone skeptically. From the corner of his eye he spotted Commissioner Moran, who appeared briefly in the entranceway of his antechamber just off the stage. The show was about to begin.

  “Okay, give it here.”

  He took the phone, which looked comically small in his gigantic hand, and began entering a number. Then, as if prompted by his impatience, one of the two telephones on the table rang at last.

  “Willie!” Petralia screeched, pointing to the stuttering light.

  He sighed. “Finally!”

  He brought the receiver to his ear as Petralia watched and waited. He nodded a few times and grunted a few generic responses, all the while watching the stage and the clock. Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Petralia’s nerves went into overdrive.

  “Yes, yes, I understand. Okay, talk to you later.”

  He hung up and turned to his young colleague.

  “You’re not going to believe this.…”

  * * *

  At precisely twelve noon, George Moran emerged from the antechamber to the left of the stage where he customarily waited for each team to decide their next pick. Moran would announce the picks for the first and second rounds, then relinquish the chore to one of his lieutenants. After that he would mingle briefly with the audience, albeit accompanied by a sizable security team, then disappear for good.

  As he began making his way to the podium, he was handed a small white card by an anonymous figure who stood just outside the anteroom archway. At the top of the card was whatever logo the NFL’s designers had come up with for that year’s draft. At the bottom was the logo of team that possessed the current pick. In between were blank spaces for the number of the current draft round, the name of the player about to be taken, his position, school, and the number of his overall pick.

  The crowd exploded when the commissioner appeared, and he smiled in response.

  “Good morning, and welcome to the NFL draft.” Another round of deafening applause, and then he continued simply with, “The San Diego Chargers have the first pick and are now on the clock.”

  Moran lingered for a moment—even he wasn’t sure what would happen next. Then he strolled casually back to his little waiting room. At the ESPN desk—a semicircle set on a riser in the middle of the media section—Chris Berman, Mel Kiper, Chris Mortensen, and Mike Terico began their analysis in front of a bank of live cameras.

  “Well,” Berman began, “this breaking news about Brendan Cavanaugh being fired is certainly the second big story of the day. Almost on par with whether or not the Baltimore Ravens will in fact be receiving the first pick from San Diego, as was previously expected.”

  The camera switched to a serious-looking Chris Mortensen, who addressed viewers directly. “That’s right, Boomer. If you don’t already know, it has now been confirmed that Brendan Cavanaugh, general manager of the Denver Broncos, has been fired for allegedly having contact with someone in the Ravens’ organization concerning the deal the Ravens were trying to work out with the Chargers for the first overall pick. Now I’ve tried to get further details on the story, but thus far everyone in the Chargers, Broncos, and Ravens organizations are being tight lipped.”

  “It was rumored that the Broncos and the Ravens were the only two teams left competing for that pick, is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s right. But I’ve also been told by a league source that a private phone conference took place early this morning between the three teams and Commissioner Moran concerning the matter. However, I can’t get any confirmation on what was discussed.”

  “Is it possible the Ravens have lost the chance to—?”

  Berman stopped when Moran reappeared. He was handed another card and approached the podium. Again the room fell silent. Three enormous images of the man appeared on the overhead screens.

  “With the first overall pick of the draft, the San Diego Chargers have elected to make a trade. The pick now belongs to the Denver Broncos.” A collective gasp came from the audience.

  * * *

  Jon sat behind the vast, paper-littered table in the Ravens’ war room, watching events unfold on the two flat-screen television monitors that hung from the corners. He chewed on a pen without realizing it. Cary Blanchard and his coaching staff sat in a row behind him. Kevin Tanner was at his left. Connally paced furiously and kept raking his fingers through his hair.

  Finally, Connally turned to Jon and said, “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

  Jon looked to Blanchard, who nodded. Then he turned back to his boss.

  “Yes, I’m positive.”

  * * *

  Keyboards chattered and voices blended into a feverish cacophony as word of this stunning development raced through the MSG theater and out to the waiting football world.

  Back on the ESPN riser, Berman turned to Kiper, who up to this point had remained silent. “Mel, what’s your take on this?”

  Kiper went to speak, then laughed and threw his hands up. “I have no idea. This is just … beyond imagination. Like all of you, and in fact most everyone else, I was under the impression the Ravens had the pick pretty much in the bag.”

  Back in the pit, two league representatives stood in front of the Broncos table and waited. One of the Bronco reps was on the phone. After he hung up, he hurriedly filled in a new draft card and handed it to the officials. They in turn brought it to a group of league execs seated in a row at the front of the stage. They distributed the information among their record keepers and among ESPN personnel, the latter so they would have it ready for instant broadcasting. Then, finally, the card was given to the anonymous figure standing just outside the commissioner’s lair. The commissioner was alerted that another pick was ready.

  * * *

  Jon stopped swiveling in his chair and leaned forward. Connally stopped pacing.

  “Here it comes,” he said softly.

  * * *

  Moran took the card in stride, the ink on it barely dry, and came to the podium. He glanced at the card once, registering the information, then looked back up. As usual, his expression conveyed nothing.

  “With the first overall pick of the draft … the Denver Broncos have selected, from Michigan, quarterback Christian—”

  The rest of his speech was dampened by gasps and a smattering of applause. A respectable-sized cadre of Broncos faithful, who had made the pilgrimage in support of their beloved championship team, exploded in a symphony of screams and howls. Ravens fans, seated on the other side of the theater, stood motionless, thoroughly confused. In this sense, they truly represented the rest of their base back home.

  Their bewilderment would not last long.

  22

  A smug Phillip Alderman thought he was standing in the midst of history as it was being made.

  They were all in the press room at the Broncos’ facility. It was small and unspectacular, to say the least. A giant sheet decorated with the team logo hung from one wall, a lectern stood in front of it. There were two rows of cubbyholes, and each station had a light and a phone line so the writers could connect their laptops to the Internet. A local catering service provided platters of food and giant plastic tubs filled with ice and bottled beverages
.

  McKinley handled the press remarkably well. He was calm, smooth, and dynamic. He knew when to be serious and when to be playful. He seemed to enjoy the experience, and the reporters clearly enjoyed him. Alderman, standing just out of view of the cameras along with McKinley’s mother and his agent, thought the kid had either studied the mannerisms and techniques of a thousand other press conference veterans, or he was really just that good by nature. Alderman joined him for the standard shot of him holding up his new Broncos jersey, a repeat of what McKinley had done with Commissioner Moran in New York City just a few hours earlier. He wanted to make sure his face was connected to this turning point moment in Broncos history. McKinley would lead them into a new and glorious era. The organization had been suffering from a long line of medicore QBs for since Elway. Now that would change. Yes, Brendan Cavanaugh had started the deal, but Alderman had finished it. He didn’t like Cavanaugh’s methods, but he knew the guy had been right about the team’s greatest need.

  What still troubled Phil Alderman, however, was why the Ravens, in the end, gave up the pick so easily. One moment there was Jon Sabino on the phone, almost whining like a child to the commissioner after weeks of intense negotiation and dealmaking. And then, with just minutes left, Skip Henderson called to say the Ravens decided to give up their pursuit of the pick. At first Alderman figured he had simply outbid them, that he and the Denver organization had, in the end, offered a more attractive package. That had certainly given up plenty, so it was a believable explanation on the surface.

  But something about it didn’t sit right. Alderman knew Sabino too well, knew the guy’s reputation for cunning and brilliance. It just didn’t make sense that he was simply beaten. This nagged at him from the edges of his mind for a while.

  Then, four days after the draft, the answer came with sickening clarity—while Alderman was sitting in his office reviewing a list of potential candidates to officially replace Cavanaugh, an e-mail landed in his inbox, following by a chime. He usually only tended to e-mails twice a day—once in the morning, and once at lunch. But when he glanced over at the screen and saw that this one was sent by a longtime friend who had retired from the league years ago and sent e-mails only when the matter was important—and that the subject line read, YOU MIGHT WANT TO LOOK AT THIS—he immediately opened it. The message contained nothing more than a live Web link. Clicking on it, Alderman was taken to an article posted by sportswriter Patti Sheridan less than an hour before. The headline—“A Father’s Pride: Baltimore Signs the Talented Son of Legendary Quincy Pressner.”