Pieces of a Team

On the draft broadcast, Champ Bailey accepted the Angels' selection without much celebration. He nodded, shook the offered hands, and kept his expression carefully neutral. Nolan couldn't tell whether Bailey disliked Los Angeles or had expected another team to call. It no longer mattered. The pick was in, and a first-round choice was only the start of a much longer negotiation.

The remaining first-round selections passed without the Angels. Nolan turned back to the board. The argument over their next choice had already begun.

Andy Reid wanted Mike Rucker, Nebraska's defensive end. Holmgren preferred Gary Stills, whose final year at West Virginia had made him much harder to overlook.

"Rucker started for four years," Reid said. "Forty-nine games, twenty-one sacks, and he hasn't stopped improving. Show me a safer edge player still available."

"Stills made the biggest jump this season," Holmgren countered. "He finished with sixty-nine tackles and set a school mark. Why are you treating one player's college career as finished and the other's as a guarantee?"

"Because we're drafting an NFL player, not awarding a prize for a good senior year."

"And I'm telling you development matters."

Rhodes looked at Nolan over the top of his board. The two coaches had spent the week disagreeing over nearly everything. Nolan let them finish, then pointed at the clock.

"Round two is starting. We have to choose."

He took Rucker. Cleveland followed with Syracuse receiver Kevin Johnson; Cincinnati chose cornerback Charles Fisher. As round three advanced, Nolan kept checking the names still on the board. Stills remained there when the Angels' turn came.

"There," he said. "You both get your end."

Reid was already thinking about the offense. He wanted Marty Booker if the receiver somehow slipped another round. Nolan doubted Chicago would let him. The Bears selected Booker seventy-eighth. One pick later, the Giants took tight end Dan Campbell, another name the Angels had discussed.

"They won't even use him right," Holmgren muttered.

"They got there first," Nolan said. "Move on."

In round four, the Angels chose tight end Desmond Clark. They used their additional fourth-round selection on defensive tackle Roderick Coleman. The staff had agreed to build the defensive front early. It was the one part of an expansion roster they could give a recognizable shape before opening day. Nolan could escape a collapsing pocket; an opposing quarterback would have nowhere to hide if Rhodes's line worked.

Linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo joined them in the fifth. In the sixth, they took Brian Waters to develop on the offensive line. Their seventh-round choice was Donald Driver, a receiver from Alcorn State whose speed caught Nolan's eye even though his pre-draft testing had not persuaded the rest of the league.

The board finally ran out of picks. A running back, a corner, a group of young linemen, a tight end, a linebacker, and a receiver: it was a beginning, not a roster. Nolan caught himself looking for a pattern in the players' backgrounds instead of asking whether each man could play. That was a poor way to run a team. Bailey's attitude worried him more than any box on a scouting form, and the solution to that problem would have to be football.

"Driver could surprise people," Holmgren said. "Give him a quarterback who can put the ball in front of him and see what happens."

"First we give him a place on the depth chart," Nolan replied. "We haven't even filled one."

Reid handed over a list of undrafted and recently released players he wanted invited to camp. An invitation was not a roster spot; four weeks of work would determine who stayed. Armstrong would contact the prospects that afternoon. Nolan also asked Holmgren for a pro scout who knew available veterans, especially players whose experience could steady a young locker room. He called Bob Bockrath, whom he knew from his Alabama years, and asked for introductions to seniors Mike DuBose's staff thought might deserve a tryout.

The club still needed more bodies than any one list could supply. Nolan had no illusion that James and Bailey could cover every weakness. An expansion team had no bench of familiar veterans, little room for expensive free agents, and no time to manufacture cohesion.

The league's new alignment made that shortage feel sharper. In this reshaped NFL, the Angels entered the AFC West with Oakland, Denver, and Kansas City. Across the conference line, the NFC West contained San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, and Arizona. There would be no gentle first season for Los Angeles. The league had arranged the Angels' opener in Dallas, where Nolan would face the team he had just led to a championship.

"They know exactly what they're selling," Reid said when he saw the schedule.

"So do we," Nolan replied, though the six unfinished sections of the depth chart said otherwise.

For weeks he watched the practice site renovation by day and worked through personnel reports at night. When he finally got home one evening, Lisa was there with the child. The little one hesitated behind her skirt before accepting Nolan's outstretched arms.

"Another week and he won't remember you," Lisa said. Her smile didn't hide the complaint.

"I know." Nolan lifted the child. "I'm looking for a larger house. Beverly Hills, enough rooms for everyone. You could move in, if that's what you want."

She wanted it. She was already naming agents she knew before he finished the thought. The house had grown crowded, and even Nolan's brother in San Francisco had been pulled into Angels work. He was building the team's website and an online forum, with licensed merchandise sales on the longer-range list.

Lisa had come with business too. A local bank wanted a sponsorship deal. Nolan explained that club-level commercial rights had to be checked against league rules and the team's venue arrangements; they could discuss a legitimate service partnership, but they could not take money under a label that would not survive review. Lisa's excitement dimmed. Without a permanent home venue, the Angels had fewer useful categories to sell.

"Then ask me when you need cash," she said, producing a check for five million dollars. "Mia told me the books are tighter than anyone admits."

Nolan stared at it. Mia had seen the thin balance on the club's books and blamed Ovitz, whose promised investment was partly tied up in property development. Nolan had encouraged the impression that they were poorer than they were to put pressure on him. Behind the public squeeze, Nolan had cut expenses enough to leave a surplus. Jerry Jones had also promised support that had yet to arrive. When Nolan explained the maneuver, Lisa laughed.

"You've brought Hollywood accounting into football."

He tried to return the check. Her trusts were secure for now, and she could keep the money invested. Lisa refused to take it back.

"It'll be yours sooner or later," she said. "Put it toward that big house. I'm selling mine and moving in."

She leaned against him. Their private moment was interrupted when Mia came home, and Lisa called after her in mock complaint. By evening the focus shifted to Mia's birthday. Lisa, Katherine, Kelsey, and the others gathered around a table crowded with gifts. Jennifer and Sarah arrived from their sets; Penny and Charlize had sent presents. Lisa's was the largest: a small Beverly Hills salon for Mia to run.

Nolan kept glancing at his phone. Sarah caught him.

"Afraid of the birthday crowd?"

"I've faced worse defenses."

The message was from Britney, whose film cameo was finished. She was leaving Los Angeles the next day and wanted to know whether they might work together again. Nolan suggested a future recording session if the right song came along. Her reply was a teasing gesture on the screen. He put the phone away and stayed with the adults at the table.

After the children were asleep and Mia's gifts had been put aside, the celebration became private. Nolan spent the night with the six adult women and, for the first time, admitted he had reached his limit. Lisa teased him about testing it again. He refused, and she laughed and said she had been joking. Then Katherine asked the women who had been with Nolan on the island whether their periods had come. Both shook their heads. The teasing stopped.

Two weeks later, Kristen carried a box of Saints cheer photographs into her New Orleans apartment. Her position had been eliminated with little warning. She was angry enough to throw the pictures away, then angry at herself for doing it. The Angels had an opening, but Kelsey was there, and Kristen did not know whether she wanted that complication.

Nolan called. She demanded to know whether he'd arranged her dismissal. He admitted that he had. He wanted her on the Angels squad, working alongside Kelsey. The pay would be better than in Dallas, he said, and there would be personal attention from him as well. Kristen heard the implication. She had met enough men who dressed their expectations up as opportunities. Yet Los Angeles offered work, and Nolan was young, wealthy, and running a club. Going west would be hard to undo.

"If I say no, will you leave me alone?"

"If you don't want to come, I'll find someone else."

"I'll come," she said. In her mind, she had already accepted what being his lover might mean.

She asked for airfare, help finding housing, and someone to meet her at the airport. He agreed. After the call, she buried her face in a pillow. A new job could be the right decision and still hurt.

Peter met her flight. Two more recruits were arriving, he explained, so they waited in the car. McKenna Avery came first, friendly enough to make the ride easier. She had danced with Alabama's Crimsonettes before graduate school. Belinda, formerly a Jacksonville cheer captain, came last and talked as if Nolan had spent forty minutes begging her to join. In fact, Sarah had rejected her at an agency interview; facing unemployment, Belinda had called Nolan herself. Kristen and McKenna did not know that, but neither entirely believed her story.

"Were you at Alabama with Nolan?" Kristen asked McKenna.

"I was his girlfriend in college," McKenna said.

Belinda flushed and tried to dismiss her boasts as a joke. McKenna shook her head. With so many women around Nolan, Belinda's story did not sound impossible. She and Nolan had stayed in touch during her graduate studies at Alabama, but she had learned far too late how much he had hidden from her. Once, she had imagined marrying him. Kristen claimed she merely knew Nolan from a visit to the Saints' stadium. She had no idea how else to introduce herself.

That answer left the three women quiet for a moment. The car continued south to UC Irvine, where camp banners and curious fans already surrounded the practice field. Kelsey met them at the entrance and led them to the changing rooms. The squad was small, the schedule hurried, and their first public appearance would be simple.

Under the California sun, five women stepped out in white and gold. Conversation in the stands faded. A few players forgot their drills until Holmgren's voice sent them back to work. Kristen found her place in the line and raised her pom-poms. Across the field, Nolan watched the formation take shape. The roster on the other side of the grass still needed work. This one did too, but both were finally real.