CHAPTER 28
Roman told himself the exclusion was temporary.
Temporary decisions had saved games. A timeout interrupted chaos without determining the final plan. A player came off the field for evaluation and returned when risk cleared. A model could wait seventy-two hours while legal reviewed the conditions around its use.
By Thursday morning, fear had disguised itself as operational cleanliness.
Roman reviewed the prior day’s depth-chart decision three times. The record showed football reasons. It also showed Lena’s recommendation entered after a private calendar block. No report could prove the thought in his mind had remained separate from the woman in his bed.
He called Helena before dawn and asked whether temporary separation would prejudice the review.
“Any change to status quo creates its own question,” she said. “The investigator ordered preservation. If a specific meeting carries risk, state it and ask for guidance. Do not invent a blanket remedy because discomfort feels urgent.”
“Camp cannot wait for guidance on every room.”
“Then use the interim order you signed.”
Roman ended the call more frustrated than informed, which should have warned him. Instead, he began drafting.
He imagined headlines accusing Lena of sleeping her way into the draft room. He imagined players treating every threshold as his girlfriend’s preference. He imagined his ex-wife’s face when private conflict entered public work.
None of those images was a current football reason.
He used them anyway.
Roman drafted an instruction removing Lena from live coaching meetings and suspending her model from active depth-chart decisions until Helena completed the favoritism review. Analytics could continue offline work. Existing records would be preserved. No employment action would occur.
He called it neutral.
Before issuing it, Roman tested the order on one narrow meeting. He excluded Lena from a red-zone installation review and asked her department to submit written thresholds in advance. The room finished twelve minutes early.
It also missed a conflict between the two-minute package and the prior day’s defensive workload. Lena’s note identified the issue, but without her present to hear Wes change the personnel grouping, the written recommendation attached to an obsolete state.
Omar caught the conflict after practice had already been printed.
“We can adjust,” Roman said.
“We can,” Omar replied. “But the experiment did not reduce risk. It moved the correction later.”
Roman should have restored her to the next meeting and documented the failed exclusion. Instead, he treated the mistake as proof that the entire live process had become unstable.
He called Lena’s liaison and asked for a standing decision tree that coaches could use without her.
“Dr. Ortiz has not approved a substitute workflow,” the analyst said. “I can explain the current model, but I cannot create methodology under an access restriction.”
“I am not asking you to create methodology.”
“A decision tree that changes when a recommendation applies is methodology.”
Even Lena’s junior staff had learned to name the boundary. Roman heard the correctness and felt only obstruction.
“Submit what you are authorized to submit,” he said.
The analyst did. Every page contained limitations Roman wanted removed and no conclusion broad enough to spare him judgment.
By dawn, his office held evidence that exclusion made the process worse. Fear translated the evidence into urgency. If one room could fail, every room required a clean pause.
Sloane read the draft in his office. “You do not have authority over Lena’s department.”
“I have authority over coaching meetings and model use.”
“Subject to the interim order. The complaint has not found misconduct, and Lena has an appeal right.”
“The appeal remains.”
“After you remove her.”
“I am preserving football operations while legal sorts the access gap.”
Sloane’s blue-green eyes turned cold. “You are preserving your comfort.”
“Every decision involving her is now suspect.”
“Suspicion is not evidence.”
“Public process doesn’t move at camp speed.”
“Then document at camp speed. You signed that system.”
Roman looked through the office glass at coaches crossing the hall. Practice began in ninety minutes. He could feel the organization waiting, the threat of every decision becoming a hearing.
“This protects her from the accusation that she influenced me,” he said.
“By proving her influence disappears when accused?”
He rejected the sentence because accepting it meant tolerating uncertainty he could end with one order.
“I am issuing a football-access instruction,” he said.
“Then I am recording my objection and notifying Helena that you may have exceeded the interim boundary.”
Sloane left without slamming the door. The quiet was worse.
Roman sent the instruction through football operations and legal distribution. He intended to tell Lena himself as soon as the practice plan stabilized.
The order changed more than Lena’s chair before she saw it. Her analysts lost access to the live coaching channel. The receiver coach received an automated notice that current thresholds were unavailable. June asked whether the department should stop producing outputs or continue under Sloane.
Roman answered through operations. “Continue offline. Preserve everything.”
“Who approves methodology questions while Dr. Ortiz is excluded from football access?” June asked.
“Dr. Ortiz retains department authority.”
The contradiction sat naked in his answer. Lena could lead the model but not enter the rooms defining its question. Roman knew it and proceeded because temporary still promised relief.
Wes called from the installation room. “Do we tell players why today’s workload language changed?”
“Tell them the integrated process is paused during governance review. Medical authority is unchanged.”
“They will assume the model failed.”
“Then correct the assumption.”
Roman had created a communication burden in every room and called it cleanliness.
An assistant delivered the notice first.
Roman learned that when he saw Lena at the far end of the corridor, printed order in her hand.
The facility seemed to empty between them.
She approached without haste. Her face revealed nothing; her hands crushed one edge of the paper.
“You sent this through an assistant.”
“I sent it through required channels. I was coming to you.”
“After it became effective.”
“We are not discussing the review privately.”
“You made a new decision about my authority. That is not testimony coordination.”
“The pause protects both of us.”
Her expression changed then. Not anger. Recognition.
“You used the word.”
“What word?”
“Protect. The word you use when you make someone else’s choice because uncertainty feels dangerous.”
Roman’s temper rose because she had found the fear beneath his reasoning. “I will not let a relationship destabilize camp.”
“It didn’t. Your response did.”
“Seventy-two hours offline will not erase your career.”
“My mentor called the authorship change temporary while investors reviewed communications.”
“I am not him.”
“Then stop repeating his conduct.”
The comparison hit like a fist.
“Your model remains yours,” Roman said. “Your title and pay remain.”
“You removed me from the rooms where the work matters and shelved the output without consulting me. You made expertise welcome only while it caused no inconvenience.”
“The complaint targets access.”
“The complaint targets whether access distorted football judgment. Audit the judgment. Do not remove the woman.”
“I removed the model too.”
“That is not better.”
Staff moved at the edges of the corridor, pretending not to witness. Roman lowered his voice.
“Not here.”
“Here is where you removed me.”
Lena set the notice on the side station outside the primary film room. “I am activating the appeal. All methodology, model versions, and staff remain under my department. Your order does not authorize access to the encrypted drive or deletion of any work.”
“I would never delete it.”
“Your intent is no longer sufficient.”
She walked away before he could ask what the order had done to them personally.
Roman entered the film room alone.
The permanent chair stood empty beside his.
For two hours, coaches made decisions without Lena’s live input. The room was quieter. Faster. Cleaner.
And wrong in ways he could not yet measure.