Hazy as this seems now, a decade ago, Steve Spagnuolo was among the most coveted commodities in NFL coaching. So much so that he initially seemed beyond the St. Louis Rams price range for their vacant head coaching job.
And this was back when you could still assume that trying to win, elusive as it was, was meaningful to the organization across the state. Back before Stan Kroenke took full ownership and dedicated his energy and resources to his covert and treacherous scheme to return the franchise to Los Angeles where three years after the maneuvering the Rams are suddenly a Super Bowl team after failing to make the playoffs in their last 11 seasons in St. Louis.
As the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants at the time, Spagnuolo was only a year removed from orchestrating a rare smothering of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. That Patriots team, you may remember, was 18-0 entering Super Bowl XLII and had led the NFL with 36.8 points a game including a 38-35 victory over the Giants in their regular-season finale.
But Spagnuolos defense in the Super Bowl stifled and swarmed Brady, sacking him five times for 37 yards … a notable contrast from the zero sacks (and scant hurries) the Chiefs were able to generate in their 37-31 loss in the AFC Championship Game last Sunday. Though his resume then was enhanced by a defense that gave up fewer points the next season, that 17-14 win over the Patriots was his crowning achievement.
So there is some symbolic symmetry in connecting that moment to the Chiefs naming him their defensive coordinator late last week, just days after firing Bob Sutton, putting Spagnuolo in the pivotal position to be the one to get the Chiefs past New England or not in the future.
Trouble is, Spagnuolos resume is pretty splotchy since that pinnacle.
He went just 10-38 in three seasons with the Rams, his teams outscored 1,171 to 657 in the process. In five different jobs with three different organizations after that, he otherwise achieved little to recommend him beyond coordinating a Giants defensive unit that was second in the league in points allowed in 2016.
After serving as interim coach in the wake of the deposed Ben McAdoo in New York in 2017, he was ushered out with the rest of the staff and didnt coach in 2018.
Even accounting for circumstances beyond his control (flux in leadership in St. Louis; the Bountygate mess in New Orleans; instability in New York), its easy to figure that the 59-year-old Spagnuolos best days are behind him.
On the surface, this is an unimaginative hire of someone Chiefs coach Andy Reid used to work with precisely when this team needs a fresh approach.
But lets look a little deeper at why Reid would make this choice, surely one of the most momentous of his career as he craves a Super Bowl victory for Kansas City and at least in the back of his mind what would be a career-defining distinction.
With more dynamic defense to fortify the mind-boggling potential of an offense led by 23-year-old Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs are on the verge of special days ahead instead of merely extending their Super Bowl drought to a half-century and counting.
This mattered too much, in other words, for Reid to do make a decision simply because it was easy or safe or predictable. While we see only the outcome of something that moved pretty fast, whos to say what else was or wasnt considered before he arrived at this decision?
Ultimately, the choice to hire Spagnuolo runs deeper than Reids statement calling Spagnuolo a bright defensive mind with a lot of coaching experience and success in our league and noting his teaching skills and his scheme presumably meaning a blitz-heavy 4-3 defense that instantly is more aggressive than Suttons more reactive approach and seems well-suited to the Chiefs personnel.
Its about trust and belief in what you know, something Reid is hinging his name and legacy to.
