Hiring Chiefs based on experience and work history hasn't worked out well over the last 15 years. Phil being a professional actor would allow him to study the role of Chief and develop a Chief character and weekly acting script based on successful past police chiefs. He could act out that script to run the department. He's 3 degrees from Kevin Bacon counting movies, although if you include TV shows then Vadim beats him by 1 degree. It's a tossup that a the people doing the national search for Chief