Several weeks into the season, Chiefs say complacency is still their biggest fight
If the message in a couple of Chiefs defensive meetings this week seemed repetitive to its participants, well, that was by intention. Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo hammered a point that he has been emphasizing since the offseason, back when these meetings were virtual.
The players arrive in person now, six games (and five victories) into the season. The scheme and finer points of strategy absorb a few tweaks and revisions each week, but the overarching messaging hasn’t budged.
Complacency.
“That’s our fight right now,” Spagnuolo said. “I’m not saying there is any. I’m just saying that you have to fight all the time against it.”
Early in training camp, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes gathered his teammates and offered a similar point. They would generate every opponent’s best play, their most motivated outings, he said. As the defending Super Bowl champions, it’s part of the gig.
He was making assumptions. An educated assumption, to be sure. But the Chiefs are maneuvering through territory in which they have not stepped foot in 50 years.
Spagnuolo isn’t. He’s been here before. He won a title with the Giants in 2008. That’s what has prompted his ongoing reminders. He highlights the importance of remaining steadfast in approach. Easier said than done. The Patriots are the last franchise to repeat as champions in the 2003-04 season. It’s been a 16-year drought since.
The Chiefs returned the bulk of the roster that won it all last season, a point that has been underscored enough already. But the defense, in particular, improved as the year progressed, and that can lure players into a feeling of contentment, a feeling that it will all work out by season’s end.
After all, it did last year, right?
“I think that’s always a challenge,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “Anytime you have a successful team, a championship team, and then most of the guys come back to that very same team, I think the challenge is always trying to overcome that complacency — overcoming the feeling that you’ve done enough, that you’ve accomplished enough.”
To be clear, Spagnuolo hasn’t noticed complacency to be much of an issue. Not yet. But he knows how quickly that can change.
This is where, at least in hindsight, the Chiefs can benefit from an unexpected loss to the Raiders two weeks earlier. Mathieu said he doesn’t blame contentment for the Raiders marching into Arrowhead Stadium and objectively outplaying the Chiefs.
But they’ll use it.
“That game, that feeling, it’s still in the back of our heads,” Mathieu said. “We’re trying our best to avoid that.”
The two elements of the Chiefs that drew the most criticism against the Raiders — the offensive line and the defense — performed admirably a week later. Even keyed the win in Buffalo on Monday.
Immediately afterward came the pair of defensive meetings. More chances for Spagnuolo to reiterate his message: Don’t get complacent ahead of a trip to Denver.
“That’s what happens when you’ve had some success — we expect that every week,” Spagnuolo said. “I have trust in the defensive guys that there will be no letdown.”